EVA Sessions: I, the Instrument
by Gob Hobblin
Summary: Science is power, and power breeds distance. The bonds between humans is cut for the sake of greater things. What prevents those bonds from severing? Do those bonds direct fate more than the physics of existence? When does a man end and a Father begin? A story of the man known as Gendo Ikari, and a course he could have taken.
1. Boxer

The room smelled faintly of urine and sweat. The walls were a sickly beige, though the bricks had once been white. The paint on the bars lay cracked in some places and peeling in others, reminding all who entered here that this was the receptacle for broken dreams and crumbling fantasy. Kozo Fuyutsuki grimaced, studying the single occupant of the drunk tank. A professor of metaphysical biology had no reason to visit this place. Unless, of course, he needed to bail someone out. Which he had.

The young man gazed back, a mingle of defiance and sheepish sarcasm in his eyes. He had a wad of tissue pressed against his nose, soaked with blood. For a long time, neither of them said anything.

"So…" the older man finally said. "You're Gendo Rokubungi."

"That's the rumor," the younger man murmured. It sounded as though there was liquid in his throat. He grimaced, and slid across the bench to a sink, to spit bloody phlegm into the bowl. "Excuse me," he added.

"I'm here to pick you up," the professor continued.

"I figured as much," came the reply. "You don't happen to have any Aspirin?"

"No."

"Of course not. Just…thought I'd ask." Rokubungi leaned against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment. He removed the handkerchief, revealing a purple bruise on his upper lip. Bandages wrapped around his left arm, and two of the fingers on that hand were immobilized, taped together. He looked a mess, Fuyutsuki mused. He shook his head.

"I've been appointed your academic adviser," Fuyutsuki added, leaning against the bars.

"Ah," the younger man said, smiling lightly. "Good deal. That's good. You sound like you're all keyed up to advise me right now."

"Do I? I thought I was keying up disgust," Fuyutsuki sniffed.

"From a college professor? That means a lecture," Rokubungi retorted. _Well_, Fuyutsuki mused, _That's true enough_.

"I'm trying to decide what advice to give to a young man who picks fights he can't win," the professor said. "Especially one with a mind like yours. For a smart kid, you're pretty dumb."

"In all fairness…_they_ attacked _me,_" Rokubungi insisted. "I've yet to determine what the source of their grievance was. I'm still paying for it, in fact. Can we leave? I'd like to get some breakfast."

"You're hungry? After all that?" Fuyutsuki teased.

"I feel sick," the young man grumped, "However, I imagine I should eat something."

"I'm here to bail you out, not buy you breakfast," the professor snapped.

"I'll buy. You bail," Rokubungi said, waving a hand vaguely. Shaking his head, the professor turned to the police officer charged with overseeing the tank.

"I'll take him out, now. Do you need anything else from me?"

"Paperworks in order, so no," the officer said. "Just see if you can keep him out of here in the future. We're thinking of setting aside a room for his personal use at this point."

"Thanks, Takagawa, you've always been a gentleman," Rokubungi sneered, slowly easing up to his feet. Shifting unsteadily, he began to walk forward. As he passed by the bars, Fuyutsuki made a face. The young man was in desperate need of a shower.

"Really, what would your parents think?" he muttered.

"My mother is dead and my father doesn't care," Rokubungi said, grinning. "So neither do I. Lead on, professor." Fuyutsuki sighed, turning towards the exit. Rokubungi stumbled a bit, and on impulse, Fuyutsuki hooked a hand behind his elbow, to steady the younger man. Rokubungi ripped his arm away, and Fuyutsuki recoiled in shock. "I can walk on my own," the younger man snapped.

The police officer grabbed his collar and pushed the younger man into a wall. "That is not the way we show the good professor our thanks," the cop snapped. "So if you can't be gracious, you can cool it in the tank until you figure it out."

"That's not necessary, Officer," Fuyutsuki insisted, holding up a hand. Rokubungi was very still, his eyes still defiant but clearly in no shape to resist.

"You sure, Professor?" the officer asked. "No charge to you. You already bailed him, so you can grab him when you feel like it. We don't mind, do we?" He put his mouth near Rokubungi's ear, to emphasize how willing he was to toss the young rooster back in the cage.

"I'm sure. Let's just…put it behind us. Fair enough?" Fuyutsuki waited patiently as the cop let the words linger in the air.

"Hear that, my boy?" the officer finally said. "You've got a nice sponsor here. Think about that." He leaned into the man once more, pressing him hard into the bricks, before releasing him and stepping back. "He's all yours, sir…Heaven help you."

* * *

A quick query with the front desk informed Fuyutsuki of a donut stand a half-block away, with decent coffee and pastries. Rokubungi grunted in a noncommittal way. Fuyutsuki thanked the police woman at the desk, and led the young man out of the police station and into the world. Turning north on the street, he studied the profile of the young man before leading on.

Gendo Rokubungi was a lean faced fellow. He had a look that could only be described as 'hungry,' and a reputation that said poor things about his character. His default expression, as far as Fuyutsuki could decide, was a smirk, but the eyes held no amusement. They looked hunted, and paranoid. Fuyutsuki was trying not to dislike the kid, but it was hard. Rokubungi's attitude made disliking him very easy. Natural, even. It was a shame, in a way. The young man might be a good-looking fellow if it wasn't for those eyes.

The walk was in silence, as was the breakfast. Rokubungi purchased a cheese Danish and a cup of black coffee, and nibbled at one while sipping the other. "It confuses me," Fuyutsuki finally murmured, "Why a student in biology would behave in such a reckless manner."

"As opposed to a student in math? Or theater? What field of study allows me recklessness?" The young man grinned, and Fuyutsuki saw that one of his teeth had been broken, sheered off in the middle.

"Do you know you have some broken teeth?"

"Do I look like I care?" Rokubungi said, his tone breezy.

"A bit, as carefully as you're eating that pastry," Fuyutsuki countered. Rokubungi sniffed, the grin devolving to the default smirk and drifting a little further down than that.

"It's trivial," he mumbled.

"No honest idea why you got into a fight? Why you were jumped?"

"I have only the vaguest of notions. Of course, it was probably my fault. It always is, you see." He sipped at the coffee. "I have a way with people that is not diplomatic, I am told."

"Please, elaborate," Fuyutsuki asked, his voice oozing sarcasm.

"An academic adviser who cares. I am touched to the core," Rokubungi snapped. He radiated a sudden and unexplainable anger, a challenge to try to continue to care. Fuyutsuki furrowed his brow. What moods the kid went through!

"I don't," he retorted. "It is what it is, and you have a sharp mind. And a bad attitude. If I can salvage you, I would like to."

"Salvage me…I like that. I like that a lot," Rokubungi snapped. "Thank you so much for the offer, Professor."

"If I recall correctly, _you_ requested _me_ as an adviser." Fuyutsuki snapped. Rokubuni looked down, still rebellious. Fuyutsuki nodded, dropping a 1,000 yen bill on the table. "Keep the change," he told the clerk. "As for _you_," he added, slapping Rokubungi on the back, "I'm sure you know my office hours. Come by tomorrow." Rokubungi had gasped, trembling from the shock of the blow.

"Of course…Professor…" he grumbled, dropping the Danish on a napkin. He stared at the money the professor had left behind. He didn't want to eat anymore.

* * *

Fuyutsuki took a cab back to Kyoto University, not feeling the urge to go home yet. The meeting hadn't left him rattled, but it had put a bad taste in his mouth. He had the urge to try to get some work done, to lose himself in grading papers or looking over one of his articles. Something to shake the awkwardness of that first encounter. Gendo Rokubungi…he found himself scoffing at the thought of the man. Reputations in academia could make or break a fellow, even more so in Japan than other places. Rokubungi possessed a reputation that should have seen him sunk to the bottom of the nearest lake, for fear of contaminating anyone else with his poor karma. Fuyutsuki wondered why he had even offered the fellow the time of day, much less bailed him out. He felt the millstone gathering weight, the chords wrapping around his neck. Knowing Gendo Rokubungi was the surest way to a bad end, he mused.

That wasn't a fair assessment, though. He realized that, realized it even as he pondered the thought of a tarnished reputation. He had gained a following among his students for keeping an open mind, being an approachable man. Fuyutsuki craved talent and knowledge in people, and was willing to overlook a lot of other failings in people to cultivate their virtues. So…why did he feel differently with Gendo Rokubungi? There just seemed something about the man that…felt off. It was the only thing Fuyutsuki could think of.

The man had a bad vibe. An off-color, a raw note of discord in his background.

Tipping the driver, he strolled to the annex where his office was. As he entered the structure, the smell of school welcomed him back. The scent of linoleum, papers, the odd musty smell that all academic structures seemed to gather into themselves. This is a place of learning, it seemed to say. Here, you will break the shackles of ignorance. Come, and be liberated. He smiled sardonically. _Waxing poetic, are we_?

His heels clicked against the floor as he headed towards his first-floor office, not surprised to see the light still on. There would only be one other person here at this time. He leaned into the open door and surveyed the room. Stacks of books and papers, his desk by the window, a table in the center for meetings. The blackboard dominating the far wall, scribbled with higher-order mathematical theorems specific to metaphysical biology. The young woman with the fine figure and dark hair pondering the board. A wave of something like desire moved through him, and as quickly as it came, he stomped it down like an insect. He knocked on the door-frame, and crossed to his desk. She turned, and her delicate face lit up in pleasure.

"Fuyutsuki-sensei," she beamed. "I'm sorry. I was just wanting to look over this again."

"Miss Ikari," he said, smiling. "I'd figure you'd have gone home by now." That was a half-truth, of course. They often competed for the prize of 'Last to Leave.' She generally held that title more times than he did.

"I was planning on it," she said, grinning tiredly. She pointed at the chalkboard, covered in higher order mathematics. Metaphysical biology had a higher math-focus than even mainline biology, though most of the math in _this_ field was theoretical. It was a science that existed primarily in thought-experiments, and relied upon the chalkboard more than the laboratory, at least at this point in its existence. She gestured to the board. "I keep thinking the figures are wrong, but I can't quite figure how."

"Sometimes, you just need to work on something else to clear the mind," he suggested, dropping his jacket on the desk. He glanced up at the words he had put on the top of the board: Absolute Terror Field. "I'd say step away from it and work on something else, for a bit."

"I'd like to, but I just hate leaving something unfinished," she sighed. The professor chuckled, rubbing his eyes. "I guess you met Gendo Rokubungi today," the young woman said, breaking the brief silence. Fuyutsuki turned, giving her a sharp look. She was beaming at him, daring him to be snippy.

"And how would _you_ know that?"

"I suggested to him that you be his adviser," she said cheerfully.

"I beg your pardon?" The professor felt caught off guard at the frank statement.

"Yeah," she continued, erasing half a line of letters and numbers that had given her some irritation. "He had asked if there was anyone at the University worth speaking to about academic advising. I pushed your name forward." She turned to him, cocking an eyebrow. "That was okay, right?"

"How do _you_ know Gendo Rokubungi?" Fuyutsuki asked, dropping into his office chair. The admission left him feeling uneasy. He liked to think he had a pretty good grasp on who Yui Ikari was, had formed an image of her in his mind that fit to a very specific set of criteria. An image that had formed, he had to admit frankly, from a certain attraction to her. He generally looked down upon professors that became involved with students. Granted, she was a research assistant, but the point was still too fine. If just for that, if not plain professional courtesy, he had not acted upon any thoughts or feelings that had arisen from his work with her. Still, it was a difficult thing to do. He had never known a woman like her, and he was certain she was one-of-a-kind.

To know that she associated with a fellow like Rokubungi….

"He approached me in the library," she said. "He wanted to ask about the department. I felt it was a good opportunity to enlist someone away from regular biology. You know…the boring stuff." Yui winked at him, and he slumped.

"Aside from this, do you have any clue who Rokubungi is?"

"I hear he's a bit of a bad boy," she said, giving him a sly look.

"I just bailed him out of a drunk tank," Fuyutsuki said. "He had been in a fight."

Yui raised an eyebrow. "Goodness. Sounds like a handful."

"…You knew that already, didn't you?"

"Am I that transparent?" she asked coyly.

"So why sic him on me?" Fuyutsuki grumped, stretching his arms.

"I didn't 'sic' him on you, I suggested he contact you," she said. "Doesn't he _look_ like someone in need of guidance?"

"He looks like someone in need of a lot more than that," Fuyutsuki sighed. "Fear not, though, I've told him to come by my office tomorrow."

"Thank you, Fuyutuski-sensei," Yui said. "I do appreciate that." She brushed a lock of hair from her forehead, turning back to the board once more. She might as well call it a night; there were only so many ways one could twist the numbers. She put down the chalk, turned towards her things, and caught Fuyutsuki staring at her. "What?" she asked, feeling defensive.

"I'm just worried about you," he admitted. "Have you met this Rokubungi character before?"

"No, but I have heard about him," Yui replied. "Why?"

"For him to seek you out, for you to display any interest in him…just…I want you to be careful, all right? Nothing more, nothing less." He held up his palms, metaphorically washing his hands of the whole thing.

"For a professor, Fuyutsuki-sensei, you know very little about things," she said with a small grin.

"Enlighten me," he said, dryly.

"I've always been careful to guard my heart," Yui explained, retrieving her purse from its spot in a chair. "It's a product of the position I'm in. You never know who wishes to take advantage of it."

"Your…familial connections?" he asked. He knew very little about Seele, save for what few scraps Yui had shared with him. From what little he could glean, it sounded like an important group. One that could attract flies like Gendo Rokubungi looking for an "in."

"Of course," she said. "I've got a talent for reading people. I read you like a book." She smiled, and he blushed, looking away. That was an inappropriate thing for a research assistant to say to a superior, but it did nothing to change the fact of the statement. Fuyutsuki, after all, would be the first to note the strange power the woman had in navigating people. "I know a lot more about Gendo than you think."

"Gendo," he huffed. "If you're on a first-name basis already, you may be overestimating your talent."

"And I insist I have a better grasp of him than you do," she sniffed. "I would even go so far as to say I have a better grasp of him than _himself_."

"You see hidden depths, there?" he mused.

Yui slung her purse over her arm, and draped her dress-coat over the other. She fixed Fuyutsuki with a look of concern. "Well…don't you?" Fuyutsuki considered the question, struck by the honest sincerity of it. Sometimes, it was hard to tell if Yui was being manipulative, or being genuine. This seemed genuine, though. Was there something more to the young man? Something Fuyutsuki had overlooked? Hard to say, really. He didn't have all the facts, just his prejudice.

Before he could press her on the subject, she had already started out the door. "Please let me know how tomorrow's meeting goes!" she said, her tone bright. Fuyutsuki gazed after her, and reclined in the chair. Hidden depths…were there hidden depths to the young man? He would find out tomorrow, one way or the other.


	2. Charade

**Notes from GobHobblin: **Sorry about the constant update-deletion I just did for this chapter. was doing something screwy...

* * *

The young man stood in front of the board. He glanced over the equations, his smirk comfortably in its place. The gaze wandered up to the words over the board. "Absolute Terror Field," he said aloud. The words were in English, an odd decision, he thought. As he spoke them aloud, the 's' in 'Absolute' hissed and whistled. Fuyutsuki made a face. He waited for Rokubungi to finish his prowl around the room. In a way, it felt like bringing a dog home for the first time. Allow it to explore. Feel the place out. Make itself comfortable. He rubbed an eye.

"Are you familiar with the concept?"

"I've read an article. By you, actually." He turned, still smirking. "I didn't understand a word of it, frankly."

"If that's the one I'm thinking of, it was quite heavy on the math," Fuyutsuki mused. "The one in _New Horizons_, yes? The third quarter issue."

"It was sandwiched between a treatise on transhuman genetics and something about solar cells and…cockroaches. Something like that." Rokubungi waved a hand vaguely in the air. "It was just the title that caught my eye. I tried to make my way through it, but…" He gave a shrug. "I frankly didn't follow the theory presented."

"In layman's terms, think of it as an intrinsic field," Fuyutsuki said. "Like a…uh…electrical charge that holds a cloud of fine dust together. One charge keeping them bound. When the charge dissipates, the dust dissolves. Floats away."

"You're saying that we're all one false charge away from disintegration?"

"Something like that."

"…Comforting." Rokubungi traced a finger through a patch of chalk in a corner of the board. "It seems a little beyond simple biological studies."

"You're interested, are you?" Fuyutsuki rocked gently in his chair, studying Rokubungi's actions, his behavior. With the phrase "Absolute Terror Field" parked over his head, his actions took on a strange, new light to the professor. It was as though Rokubungi had crafted a personality around a core, an abrasive attitude of arrogance and ego. What was the core of the man? The actual Gendo Rokubungi?

The younger man shrugged, and glanced up from the chalk. "I'm not sure. It sounds a bit too much like noetic theory."

"There isn't anything to noetics," Fuyutsuki stated. "That's pseudoscience. What you see up there is part of the framework of metaphysical studies."

"Metaphysics is simply a term for philosophy. False sciences," Rokubungi challenged.

"Math is science, and the math exists," Fuyutsuki insisted. "The term metaphysics is simply in play because we lack the materials and the tools to utilize the math. Think of it as quantum physics with genetics."

"A terrifying thought." Rokubungi seemed uncomfortable, and the smirk faded.

"Indeed." Fuyutsuki stood up from his chair and crossed the room to the board. He pointed at one line. "See this? It is an estimate concerning a projected AT Field."

"Projected?"

"Assuming we all have this intrinsic field, this basic charge that keeps the physical stuff of our bodies from…collapsing into a puddle of goo…well, that's energy. Energy as a property can be manipulated. What kind of energy is it? Radiological? Electrical? What generates it?"

"I would imagine the same electronic impulses that drive the nervous system," Rokubungi mumbled.

"Yes, within our understanding of the universe at this time," Fuyutsuki conceded. "But what if there is another element that creates _this_ intrinsic field? Something beyond simple electrical bindings?"

"You mean a soul?"

Fuyutsuki provided a smirk of his own to the conversation. "You said it, not me."

"Another attempt to quantify the soul with science? Have you weighed anyone as they died?" Rokubungi made a grasping motion at the air. "Catch the weight of a soul?"

"No, and we cannot prove it exists, either…at least not physically. All it is right now is thought experiments, backed by these equations."

"Ah…so…projecting an AT Field?"

"Let's take _your_ term of the 'soul,'" Fuyutsuki said, wiping chalk from his hand. "It is a form of energy we have not discovered yet, perhaps something that exists in a higher-order mathematical dimension, or even another universe entirely. How does it generate power? How does it regulate it? Does the AT Field remain a fixed, immovable concept, or does it expand and contract?"

"Does it project?"

"Yes."

Rokubungi considered that, squinting at the symbols on the board. "What does that mean? Projecting?"

"It varies. I have a colleague in Denmark who believes that a projected Field could move mountains in the most literal of senses. Telekinesis and all…that." He flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture, giving a more eloquent assessment of his opinion on such things. "I, for one, do not agree. If we cannot detect an AT Field at this level, there is no reason whatsoever to think that it exists within _this_ dimension. The expansion of an AT Field is probably a lot more mundane than he thinks."

"I fail to see the practical application…"

"There really isn't one, beyond being another avenue for trying to understand the stuff that makes up the universe. More specifically, what makes us tick." Fuyutsuki cocked his head. "Open your mouth."

"What?" Rokubungi lost his mask, his expression flicking between surprise, dismay, and confusion.

"Your mouth. Open it." Fuyutsuki enunciated each word, leaning forward slightly. He was a bit taller than Rokubungi, and pressed in on him with his physical presence. The younger man sulked a moment, sucking on his teeth, and opened his mouth. Fuyutsuki gripped his chin to turn his head this way and that, observing the younger man's teeth. There was still that incisor snapped in half, but it looked like a few more were cracked as well. Rokubungi grunted, half-raising his hands in irritation.

"You need to get these fixed," Fuyutsuki chided, wiping his hand on Rokubungi's shirt front. He didn't need to, but he felt he needed to make the gesture. It had the effect he desired: Rokubungi glowered. It was enlightening to see what was under the smirk.

"That requires finances," Rokubungi said.

"There is," Fuyutsuki replied, marching to his desk. "A really good dentist just off campus. I go to her to get my regular check-ups. She did a good job of capping one of my molars after I broke it on an oyster pearl." He scribbled a note on a piece of paper, signed it, and tore it loose from the pad. "She also set me up with a good oral surgeon when my wisdom teeth needed removal. Here's her address: go see her and take this note, see about getting an appointment."

"I can't _pay_," Rokubungi insisted, looking irritated. And ashamed.

"Don't worry about that," Fuyutsuki insisted, pushing the note towards him. "Just go." For a moment, the hungry-eyed man squirmed, a strangely child-like gesture. His right hand quietly twitched, like he was trying to make a fist and just couldn't do it. Finally, he took the note, scanning it. He stood still for a moment, and Fuyutsuki could just see the wheels turning, the thoughts running through their little hallways. Rokubungi was trying to think of what to do, what to say. Gratitude didn't seem close to the surface. Fuyutsuki doubted that Rokubungi was used to thanking anyone for anything.

_Inside the Absolute Terror Field, am I_? Fuyutsuki thought, amused. _I'm seeing the real you, young Gendo Rokubungi. What a damaged human being you are._

"The pearl," Rokubungi murmured. "What happened to it?"

"Broke it in half when I bit into it," Fuyutsuki said. "It wasn't a very big pearl, anyway." Rokubungi snickered at that, and Fuyutsuki had to smile as well.

"We…uh…didn't really do any advising…here," Rokubungi murmured.

"It can wait after your teeth have been capped," the professor said. "Give Dr. Mori my regards when you see her." Somehow, Rokubungi knew the interview was over, and he left without saying another word.

* * *

For a meeting that had gone nowhere, it had left Gendo in a queer place. He was used to being the one to knock people off their balance, and take advantage of their inherent distrust, confusion, or simple dislike of him. He had determined at a young age that people meant pain, that connections were the ties that cut the human soul. His connection to his mother had cut when she passed. His connection to his father strangled him every step he took. Connections were wires, and the wise man learned how to manipulate those wires to his need. To cut first before being cut.

That being said, the note was something he had not anticipated. The note had made him uncomfortable, set him in an odd place that he was not used to and could not navigate. He wanted a clear course, and he felt robbed of that. Strangely, he didn't feel resentful, but he didn't know what to feel. Random acts of kindness didn't just happen: there was always a catch. A need, a tit-for-tat. He was trying to figure out what Fuyutsuki was wanting from him. What he _would_ want. It wasn't how he planned that meeting.

He contemplated the ins and outs of it as he sat on a bench near the main campus quad. He had stuffed his earphones in and turned his SDAT player up to a volume just high enough to drown the world, if not damage his hearing. He studied students walking by, on their way to classes to learn ordinary skills for ordinary lives. Salarymen. House-wives. Dead living. Gendo thought little of that, and little of people who accepted such a life, a casual existence that rolled in and over itself in tedious repetition. Have children. Make money. Grow old. Die. There's your mark, right there. That headstone. _That_ is the space you have left. The thought filled him with a strange dread he couldn't pinpoint, the feeling that he was in a race that he was losing. Ever since he had heard the first whispers of Seele, the first hints of that group, he had found a way to the finish line. He didn't know how, but he knew it was his path. If only he could get an in.

He had found it, he thought. And somehow, that had led to him to the meeting with Kozo Fuyutsuki. Which had led to a note to dentist for a free-visit. Which was the random act of kindness that left Gendo Rokubungi uneven, drifting. He needed to withdraw again, to put up that necessary barrier…

One of the headphones popped out of his ear. He turned, sneering, and met bright green eyes. They were _sparkling_…

Gendo was not ready.

"Your teeth are broken, did you know that?" Yui Ikari asked, scrunching her nose.

"Uh…yes."

"When did that happen?"

"…Yesterday."

"Looks uncomfortable," she noted. "How did the meeting with Fuyutsuki-sensei go?"

"It…well, it _went_," he said, feeling his cheeks burn. She smiled sweetly. Gendo glowered at that, knowing that he was blushing and _knowing_ she smiled because it pleased her. Gendo had always had a way with women, a certain casual-interest combined with a dismissive indifference, mingled in with a dash of wit and charm when he could muster it. It didn't always work, but it worked well enough for the kind of women he targeted, usually because he needed something. He had targeted Yui Ikari from the get-go, seeing her brains and familial connections to Seele as a way in. As _the_ way in. A means to an end.

And then he had spent the entire conversation with her stuttering, backtracking, and generally acting like a fool. That had never happened before. He had resolved to not let it happen again.

He had not yet succeeded in his resolution.

"Did I lie?" Yui said, leaning over to get a good look at Gendo's face. Her hands were on her knees, and her posture was positively impish. He had the feeling she was teasing him, and he didn't like it. And yet he did. Though he didn't. This woman confused him.

"Well, he's smart, like you said, but I still don't get what you metaphysical biologists have in the way of applicable science," Gendo said, trying to take charge of the conversation.

"Oh, I'm not a metaphysical biologist," she said. "I'm a bio-engineer. It just so happens my work and his have enough overlap that we can work together."

"…I thought you were…uh…" Well, _damn_ it! This woman was making him look like a fool! He had done his research on her, read her papers, checked her coursework. She had declared her major metaphysical biology, hadn't she? That was what his contact with the school records had said, at least. It seems he had wasted a good bottle of bourbon on bad information.

"_You_, I think, should look at the subject," Yui said, straightening up and smoothing her skirt. "It's an interesting field. Mostly a lot of arguing, at this point. That's the only thing you can do when all you have is theory. You'd like it, I think. I've got you pegged as the argumentative type."

"Do you?"

"Oh, yes. The first time we met and you sloped up to the desk all self-assured and cocky. I didn't even need to know your reputation. You like a fight." Yui cocked her head, one ankle crossing over the other and bouncing on the shin in thought. She clasped her hands behind her back, the very model of innocent curiosity. "You blush a _lot_, did you know that?"

"…I figured as much," he managed.

"Ah. Well, it's endearing. It draws attention to your eyes. They're quite pretty." Gendo glowered for a moment. He felt mocked, and a little insulted.

"Did you just stop by to tease me?"

"Mmm…the thought did cross my mind," Yui said coyly. "I was just wanting to check up on how the meeting with Fuyutsuki-sensei went. Also to hold you to your promise."

"I made a promise?"

"Yes. You were taking me to a movie tonight." For a moment, Gendo found himself in the rare position of panicking. _Did_ he promise to take Yui to the movies? He replayed the conversation in his mind. One awkward moment after the next, but was there a promise in there? _She_ certainly seemed to think so. He thought of Seele, thought of the future. Thought of a life beyond the one he had.

"Yes. I was. A movie. I will take you," he declared.

"Good. There's a re-showing of _Charade_ at the campus theater. Ever seen it?"

"_Charade_?"

"Cute little American film from the Sixties? Audrey Hepburn? Cary Grant? Lots of devious twists and turns, both members of the couple trying to outwit each other while being oh-so-much in love?" Her attempt at snark was slightly undone by the obvious enthusiasm she had for the film. She grinned like a fool through the summary.

"I'm guessing this is a favorite of yours," he said dryly.

"Just a bit," she agreed. "I'll meet you here at six. You pay for the tickets. I'll buy the snacks. I'm looking forward to our date, Gendo Rokubungi." She smiled brilliantly, spun on her heel, and positively _skipped_ down the quad. Gendo glared after her a moment, before a stunning realization hit him.

"I was just played, wasn't I?" he said aloud, to no one in particular.


	3. I Am Me

"You've never seen this one before, have you?" Yui's hands were behind her back, clutching her purse. She didn't really walk so much as meander, moving one way and then the next. Sometimes, she would press closer towards Gendo, and he would drift away in response. Then she would drift the opposite way, and Gendo would follow, aware of the growing distance.

"No," he admitted, "You were right about the twists. Though I figured it out about halfway through."

"I thought you would," Yui said. "Did you like it, though?"

"Yes," he admitted. It had a charm about it that was hard to deny. The viewing had been in the original English, which both Gendo and Yui spoke fluently. The patter between Audrey Hepburn's character and Cary Grant's would probably have been lost in translation had it been overdubbed in Japanese. The flirtation, the chemistry. Gendo didn't care much for movies, and he cared less for romantic ones. _Charade_ though...he had to make an exception for it, he decided.

"It's always been one of my favorite films," Yui said, drifting towards him again. Gendo moved away. "Not just because I like Paris."

"Have you been there?"

"When I was younger. My father does a lot of traveling in his work, mostly to Europe. Paris was quite the trip. You should go, someday."

"Maybe. I've never had the time, really…"

"Spend most of it getting into fights, right?"

Gendo smirked. "One little fight…"

"Say 'Sousuke.'"

"What?" He stared at her. Who was Sousuke, and why did she want him to say that name?

"Just say it," she pleaded.

"Sousuke." The name whistled grandly, each 's' a tweet. Yui rolled her eyes.

"One…little…fight," she repeated, imitating his tone.

"Don't ruin a nice evening with sniping," he mumbled. She shrugged, still weaving back and forth, pushing him to the edge of sidewalk, retreating to let him back in. She wore a blue dress, simple but very flattering, and a white, cotton button up. She wore black, soft flats, though even she had worn heels she wouldn't have been much closer to Gendo in height. He had actually made an effort to get a nice shirt and pressed pants. They made their way through the outside neighborhoods of Kyoto University, the apartment blocks where students retreated during the night. Somewhere, there was a ramen stand, the smell of cooked food and boiling broth drifting over the warm, early autumn evening. Cicada choirs sang their insect hymns, lulling the world into a dull, happy trance.

"So…why is a biology grad student interested in a little old undergrad like me?" She beamed up at him.

"How many undergrads do you know work as research assistants?" he asked, which was an honest enough question. Yui was more like a post-graduate fellow in her work than a grad student. Partly, that was due to the resounding influence of Seele. Mostly…she was just that brilliant. She had made other people in her field years ahead of her look so insubstantial in their accomplishments.

"Just my smarts? How droll." She pouted, and Gendo swallowed. He was starting to back pedal again.

"You're quite a pretty girl, too," he suggested. It was a shame his voice didn't sound convinced, because he did think her pretty. In fact, she was a very beautiful woman, with a rare spark that he had never seen in other girls he knew. Yui made a face at his tone.

"Just pretty? Not beautiful?"

"You're just fishing for compliments, now…"

"Fine, so I'm pretty. You're not a lech, are you? Going after all the young girls?"

"Now, wait a minute…" Gendo stammered. He wasn't _that_ many years older than her, he thought. Then again, why _should_ he care about the age difference between them? How was she _doing_ this?

"Is it just the girls with Seele connections?" Yui asked. Gendo stopped in place, staring at her. Her expression was still light, flirtatious, and her eyes welcoming. The question, though…the words had left him reeling, slick-sweating. Did she know about his desires? If she didn't, she would now: his reaction to the word 'Seele' not only indicated knowledge of it, but a fear of what that organization was. A smart person…as smart as Yui, for instance…would draw the inference. She would see the slight widening of the eyes, the slight tension of the jaw. Hear the sharp intake of breath. She would have a few theories on which to draw for why that would be. Being romanced would narrow that field. The question itself had indicated a tacit knowledge of Gendo's more mercenary intents.

So, he said nothing. There was simply nothing to say. Yui smirked, and gently reached up and touched the tip of his nose with her forefinger, like pushing a button. "So tense. You look like a mouse waiting for a cat."

"…I think…you have the wrong idea…"

"No, I have the right idea," Yui said, hooking an arm through Gendo's and marching on down the sidewalk. She was very close this time, and Gendo felt the old familiar panic rise. It wasn't that he didn't mind touching people, but he had a higher awareness of what each touch meant. There was the friendly gestures, the sexual contact, the angry or hateful press. These were, in and of themselves, acceptable. He was familiar with them, and in concurrent order, he had found a place for them: feigned, acceptable, lively. This contact, though, was one that felt truly different. It felt possessive. Like she was possessing him.

He didn't like it.

"You see," she was saying, "Being, in my modest opinion, a young, pretty girl with a mind like a steel-trap tends to draw a lot of the boys. I never had an interest in boys, Gendo…they have very one-dimensional minds, and very simple desires. Being my father's daughter has also closed some doors, as well as opened others. You have a lot of people who would like to take advantage of that connection. He spoiled me rotten, you know, but he always locked the gates when someone came calling. No idea if it was for me or him, you see." Gendo nodded, a reflexive motion. He was less afraid of where she could be leading him than the contact itself. Perhaps some thugs would appear from the dark and his body would be found in a park somewhere. Perhaps it would be a longer death than that. He accepted this when he began his efforts to court Seele. Better to die and tried than to never have tried at all.

The possessive arm made him squirm, though.

"So you think that's why I approached you?" he asked.

"I _know_ that's why you approached me, Gendo Rokubungi," she giggled. "Don't worry! I don't hold it against you, or anything."

"That's reassuring…"

"In fact, I find it endearing. I heard you were a devious sort."

"…I have heard those rumors."

"I believe them. Which makes your blundering around me all the more pleasurable." She popped up and kissed him on the cheek. He shivered at the contact, feeling the rush of pleasure it brought. "It speaks of honesty to me."

"How is that 'honesty?'" he asked, suddenly angry. He felt hurt, but didn't know why. He shrugged her off, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. She stopped, caught off guard by the motion and watched as Gendo continued to walk, slouching and radiating irritation and resentment. Yui cocked her head, as though looking at a puzzle spread out on a table in front of her. All the pieces were there, but they just fit together so badly.

"It means you genuinely like me, whether you realize it or not," she said. "I find that refreshing."

"I don't 'like' you!" he snapped, stopping and whirling on the sidewalk. "You're a means to an end, nothing more!" He felt only the slightest surprise at what he said. How had she goaded him to the point of saying that? Even more surprising was her reaction. It was a girlish giggle.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh!" she managed, "It's just that you're lying to the wrong person right now. You seem to do better at lying to everyone _except_ me." Gendo narrowed his eyes.

"I don't follow."

"Then I'll let you figure it out," Yui said. She closed the distance between them, slow and innocent, like she was approaching a wary dog. Something on his forehead caught her eye, and she gently reach up and brushed a lock of hair back into place. The motion felt…warm. Gendo swallowed, and looked away, feeling ashamed. "You _are_ bad news," she teased. "That's okay. I like a challenge."

"I'm a challenge, am I?" he mumbled.

"Yes. Now, walk me home. If you behave the rest of the way, I might even let you kiss me good-night. Only if you behave, that is." She laid a finger against the side of her nose, and winked at him. For a moment, Gendo did nothing. He felt trapped, and wanted to turn around and call the whole thing off. He was done with it. That's all there was to it. He would be running again. Always running. He would die running.

Wiping his chin with his hand, the gesture convulsive and evasive, he studied the woman in front of him. She simply smiled…waiting for him to decide. To decide for himself.

Seele. He needed it. He needed it more than anything. Gendo cleared his throat, and nodded to Yui. Her smile widened, and she steered him back to their original path. For a time, the walk was in silence, and Gendo realized they were going in circles. Yui's apartment was not in this neighborhood: she was deliberately prolonging the walk. He glanced at her, and she just seemed…happy. Was the silence something she enjoyed? Odd.

"So…" he ventured, breaking the spell. "You had me from the get-go?"

"Mmm-hmm," she replied, cheerfully. "I was warned about you by my father. It sounded like he wanted to…do 'something' about it. I interceded."

"Given your enjoyment of _Charade_, I'm surprised you didn't drag it out more."

"You were doing so poorly at hiding your intentions!" Yui countered. "Believe me, I would have _loved_ to drag this out a bit more. I'm sorry, Gendo, but you are no Cary Grant." She sniffed, a sound of disappointment. "Maybe you would have figured out how to play this game, but it would have frustrated you. Don't worry, though…there are other games for people like us."

"Like us?"

"Gendo, I might be a bit more devious than you give me credit for," she chirped.

"I think I'm giving you just the right amount of credit now, Yui," he retorted.

"Of course you are _now_. I just shot down your whole operation. Here's my apartment, but I imagine you know that already." Yui gave him a rueful expression. "If you wanted to know where I lived, all you had to do was ask."

"Everything I did was that transparent?"

"If it'll save your ego, I _did_ have to put out some feelers after you approached me. So, no, you aren't. In fact, you're quite good at it. Bear in mind, though, that I was raised in a world like that. You just seemed to appear in it very recently."

"I've lived in it," Gendo retorted.

"Maybe. I'd like to see what you could do with the resources my family has, though."

"Touche."

"It's not a contest," Yui quickly added. She seemed to feel that this was pushing down on Gendo, pushing him into himself. "I wasn't trying to one up you. All things considered, you've made it a lot farther than others who've tried."

"So why am I different?" Gendo asked, genuinely curious. Yui gave an enigmatic shrug.

"You just are. Here's my apartment, but I'm sure _you_ already knew that." Gendo glanced up at the three-story structure.

"I decline to answer," he said flatly.

"Don't start pouting," Yui said. "You've been well-behaved up until now. I think you've earned a kiss." She gently touched her right cheek. "Just here, though. We've only started dating."

"I beg your pardon?" Gendo asked, confused.

"Well…this was a _first_ date," Yui said, scoffing. "It just follows that there'll be a _second_ one, yes?"

"I…ah…well…." He kicked at the ground, shaking his head. Finally, he found his words. "After all that talk about…after me _admitting_…" She laid a finer on his lips, and he froze. She stared deep into his eyes…her eyes were so _green._ Only they were not the casual green of a sea foam, or the slate green of cool jade. They were deep, almost a velvet-black. Like fine hills in the evening. Gendo felt his mouth go dry, and he shivered again.

"There's always something more to us than we care to admit," she said. "I've got you pegged. Remember that." She closed her eyes, turned her head, and offered her cheek. Gendo studied her face in outline. He had been with several women, and some of them had been far more visually striking than Yui. More glamorous, more exotic. And yet, something about Yui…maybe it was the sum of her parts, the symmetry, the strange _knowing_ that drove her actions…something about her made her worth more than everything to him, in that moment. More than a nebulous future with Seele.

More than himself.

She gasped quietly as he cradled her head gently in his hands, and he lightly brushed his lips on her cheek. Slowly, he retreated, and let his hands drop. For a few breaths, Yui remained still, her head turned and eyes closed. Then, she opened those brilliant eyes, and smiled at Gendo.

"You got my heart pounding there," she admitted. "I'm actually quite dizzy. Bravo, Gendo."

"I'm not completely lost in the woods," he said, his default smirk returning comfortably to his face.

"Makes me wonder how you got the practice," Yui sniffed, crossing her arms. Gendo narrowed one of his eyes, but the smirk remained.

"Keep complaining, and you might not get another chance to judge," he said, his tone insulting.

"Oh, my…I think I touched a nerve," Yui teased. "I'm not too worried. You'll be around. When is our next date?"

"So sure of yourself," Gendo said, shaking his head. He had moved back into a position of dominance with himself, and he felt comfortable, at ease once more. He felt…how did he feel?

"With you, I am," she said. "Three days from now, I think you should take me out to eat. I know of a nice restaurant not too far from here. Walking distance, even. You cover the meal, and I'll cover drinks and dessert." Her eyes rolled to the top of her head, and her finger perched carefully on her chin, and exaggerated thinking pose. "Six o'clock is a good time to pick me up, I think. You should probably be here ten minutes early: it's always a good way to leave a first impression."

"I'll pick you up at six-thirty. I should be around at six-forty," he said, crossing his arms.

"I should have never let you kiss me. Now you're all rebellious and big-headed," Yui sighed. "Well, we have time to fix that. Six o'clock, this Saturday. Don't keep me waiting, Gendo." She turned slowly and walked into the apartment's lobby. At the door, she said over her shoulder. "I would hate to have to reassess my opinion of you." She curtsied, still with her back to him, and disappeared into the building.

For a few minutes, Gendo just stared at the door, wondering if, perhaps, Yui would come out again. It would be nice if she did, he thought. His face felt numb, and his tongue almost felt…too big for his mouth. Like it burst with words, overflowing with letters and sounds that he wanted Yui to hear. He swallowed again, and scratched his arm. How old was he? He sometimes forgot.

Twenty-six. And Yui was…nineteen, going on twenty. She was a kid compared to him, but she had him feel so _young_. So inexperienced. And he…liked it. Having someone walk circles around him. Teasing him, but not judging him. Dominating his space without chasing him away. What a strange power she had.

How did he feel? Happy. That's what it was. He felt happy. So strange to feel that way over a kiss on the cheek. In time, he turned to walk back to his own spartan flat. He walked very slowly, the warm night air cradling him in his thoughts, his hidden feelings. They weren't so hidden anymore, he decided.


	4. Rosy Cross

**Notes from GobHobblin:** Thanks for the catch, Attila1987. I can never make out the color of her eyes in pictures. Updated and corrected.

* * *

In the month after the dental visit, Gendo had yet to feel completely at ease with Fuyutsuki. He kept waiting for the moment the ground would fall out, when the exasperation would win. And for all that concern, he did little to reduce the tension. He was snide. He was smart. He was…well…he was Gendo. Difficult to get along with, difficult to stand. He did little to allow others to close the distance to him.

Despite that, Fuyutsuki possessed the patience of a saint. He humored Gendo's bad behavior while not encouraging it. He presented Gendo with studying points, private tutoring sessions, engaging his impatiently sharp mind and distracting him from his other, more self-destructive tendencies. Fuyutsuki also proved to be a good conversationalist, able to keep pace with Gendo and still show him a thing or two about a thing or two. All topics, in fact. Fuyutsuki kept a range of interests and study habits.

"It's part and parcel of metaphysics," he would say, "The combination of hard science and the search for Truth. Truth cannot be quantified, or measured. It is subjective, a slave to each of us. Shaped by the facts we know and the prejudices we hold." Gendo still didn't buy a lot of it. Pseudoscience, he would say. And yet, Fuyutsuki convinced him to do his doctoral dissertation on the Theory of the Absolute Terror Field. Fuyutsuki had a persuasive way about his field of study.

As did Yui.

She occupied the same space, worked on the same theorems and ideas, while studying her own concepts on the 'primordial soup' that spawned all life on the Earth. It was an odd topic for a bio-engineer, and Gendo strongly suspected it had to do with Seele. He did not press the issue, but looked over her work with fascination, when she needed a second set of eyes to proofread what she had. Fascinating, but…surreal.

"I'm surprised you didn't study philosophy instead," he murmured one day, examining a theorized DNA combination that she had factored into her recent paper. It reminded him, slightly, of the Tree of Life. He had learned a lot concerning mystical symbols and concepts in his time with Fuyutsuki.

"Science is today's philosophy, standing in place of religion," she replied. They were in her apartment, during the late afternoon. The sliding door to the patio was wide open, and the sounds of life outside drifted in. Gendo sat at a small table. Yui was making tea. It all felt very domestic, he mused, trying to dissect the diagram. "Are you religious?" He glanced up.

"No," he said without hesitating. "I don't believe in God or gods."

"I do," she said. He raised an eyebrow. That felt surprising, coming from her. "Not in the traditional sense, of course, but I find myself compelled by the notion of an overriding power that has shaped our past. Our future. Perhaps we need an overriding power to steer it, or…preserve it."

"Create a god? Well…in the absence of divinity, humans will make their own."

"Hmm…something like that." A teacup appeared next to his elbow, a soft hand massaged the back of his neck. For a long time, neither said anything. The only sound heard in the apartment came from the shuffling of papers, the sound of people in the streets. The occasional breeze. "How did your mother die?" Yui finally asked.

"Um…there was a…fire. An accident," he mumbled, still focused on the papers. He remembered the half-image of a face, something so important and yet so painful. He buried the image. "I was young…maybe five. I was elsewhere at the time. I remember very little of it."

"And you grew up with your dad?"

Gendo cleared his throat. "I grew up _despite_ my dad."

"You two didn't get along?"

"Still don't. He's a…difficult man." He turned in his seat, gazing up at her. "Why are you asking these questions?" Yui shrugged, and sat down in the chair next to him.

"I want to know why you are you," she said gently. "What made you…become like you are." Gendo gazed quietly at her for a moment, before turning away. He felt ashamed, and he didn't know why. He couldn't meet her eyes. "What is Seele to you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"It's a very private organization. Only a few hear about it, and what they hear is generally…inaccurate. I want to know why you want into it so badly." Gendo put down her notes, and traced little patterns on the table with his fingers.

"This world bears a great hole in it, a hole shaped like me," he said, slowly. "I've never fit into it. I don't have my place in the world, and I'm afraid that…I never will. I look at my father, and I say to myself, 'That's the man I am. That's what I'm going to be, and that's how I'll die,' and the thought terrifies me. I would give anything to impact this world. To touch it, to…move it." His fingers curled into themselves, impotent and nervous. "I simply want to exist."

"Why would Seele do that for you?" she asked.

"I couldn't tell you," he said, glancing at her. "I know that it is far-reaching, a scientific institution with a great net and many arms. I could have gone into politics, but that seemed…it's for the surface. The skin of life. Seele…that's the organs. The tissue. Where blood flows. That's…more fundamental."

"You may be disappointed in what you find," Yui said.

"I might," Gendo said. "I always knew that a might." Yui leaned over, and Gendo leaned in to meet her.

"No," she said, gently, stopping him just short. "Not yet." A wave of frustration washed over Gendo as she stood, caressing his cheek and heading back to her sink. He made a fist, and banged his hand on the table. She turned back and gave him a most unimpressed glare. "What on earth was _that_ about?"

"A month of dating and the most we've done is…hold hands and kiss each other on the cheek." Yui blinked, and crossed her arms.

"Gendo Rokubungi, are you being a grump?"

"Yes, I am!" he snapped, harsher than he meant. She sighed, and walked back over to him. She placed both hands on his shoulders, gentle and reassuring.

"Patience is part of the whole deal," she said. "You need to learn patience."

"The whole deal?"

"I'm training you, Gendo," she said, smiling.

"Training me? To do what?"

"To be a good man, of course. And a good father." He swallowed in surprise and a bit of dismay at that, but the next words shook him even more. "And…" she gently picked his hand up, "To be the kind of man Seele would induct."

* * *

The next day, Gendo was the first to Fuyutsuki's office. Yui had a lecture she wanted to attend, otherwise it would have been her beating everyone else, as usual. He paused at the door. It was open, and the window had been broken. He made a face, instinctively knowing who had to be standing inside the room. Sneering, he pushed the door in, looking at the glass spread across the floor. He glanced up, spying the figure at the board.

The man inside wore a poorly fitted suit, as though it had belonged to someone else before him. Or maybe it had fit at one time, but didn't now. His hair was black, but flecked with gray, and his face lay patched in uneven stubble, as though he had started shaving but gave up halfway through. He looked like he had given up on life in general. Gendo hung his coat on a rack next to the door.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," the intruder murmured. He turned, and gave a snide grin. "I let myself in. The door was sticking."

"It was locked," Gendo said pointedly.

"Same difference," the man mumbled. He pointed at the board. "What is all this? Your work?"

"Fuyutsuki's work. He's the professor I work with, now."

"Must be a swell guy, to take up your time."

"He's all right, I suppose." Gendo entered the room, crossing his arms. "You need to leave."

"I just got here. Don't you…want to catch some lunch, or something?"

"I want you to go," Gendo stated, firmly. The man teetered for a moment, then kicked a chair. It skittered across the room before tipping and falling. Gendo didn't flinch. The man sloped towards him.

"Is it so hard for me to try and apologize? To try and make this up?"

"By breaking into my adviser's office?" Gendo retorted, incredulous. The man jabbed a finger into Gendo's chest.

"Now, you go off to school, you're too big for me, is that it? Big man on campus, no time for his father!" Gendo snarled, grabbing a handful of his father's shirt front. The smaller man did the same to Gendo. They were about to come to true blows when a soft, clear voice cut into the air.

"Good morning, Mr. Rokubungi." Both men stared hate into each other's eyes for a moment, before turning slowly to see who greeted them. Dr. Fuyutsuki hung his coat on the rack, before crossing to his desk. "I was speaking to the younger one, though I suppose the name could apply to _you_ as well." He gestured to the older man. "I suggest you leave."

"I have a father's right to be here…to talk to my son…" The man shoved at Gendo, who shoved back. The two separated, continuing to glare at each other.

"Perhaps, but I don't think _he_ wants to see you right now." Fuyutsuki picked up his phone. "I'm calling campus security now." He waited, letting the other man figure out his next move. Shifting from one foot to the next, the elder Rokubungi exited the office.

"Another time, Gendo," he said, cracking through the glass on the floor. Silence descended upon the office once more, oppressive and lingering.

"Are you okay?" Fuyutsuki asked, dialing something on his phone.

"I'm fine," Gendo lied. "Who are you calling?"

"Facilities, to see about replacing the window," Fuyutsuki said. "Hold that thought." Gendo turned back towards the board as Fuyutsuki spoke quietly on the phone. He studied the equation, absorbed the words. The Absolute Terror Field. The thought occurred to him, in that moment, that the intrinsic field which holds the human body, the contents of living matter, together was something more than merely a property of physics. The _meta-_physical elements of it came to him in a strange flash of insight, the fear of allowing one within the safe places of the field. Past the point of terminal terror…

Projecting the terminal of terror further out…was it possible that the AT Field could exist as something more than simply a theoretical model? He smirked. What foolishness. His time with Fuyutsuki had truly seduced him into the unprovable nether realms of non-science.

"I can't work with glass on the floor," Fuyutsuki snapped. Gendo turned, surprised at the sharp tone. The professor was smiling gently, however. "You were going to pay for breakfast that day I bailed you out of jail."

"Uh…" Gendo raised a hand almost defensively, his jaw hanging loose.

"Come on. Let's go get some coffee. Lock the door on the way out."

* * *

"He seems like a gentleman, your father."

"Sarcasm is not the best way to squeeze secrets from someone, Doc," Gendo grumbled. The campus coffee shop was empty at the moment, most of the customers in class. The two men were able to take a small table by the window, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight. Fuyutsuki watched the ice melting into his coffee, contrasting to the steam drifting from the surface of Gendo's cup. The younger man stared out of the window, studying the commons.

"I find it works with you," Fuyutsuki said. Gendo turned to give the man a baleful eye. "Well, Miss Ikari says that it does," Fuyutsuki admitted. "Though I think she has an advantage on wheedling you for information."

"Are you my adviser or my shrink?"

"Do you _need_ a shrink?"

"I am scientist. I make of the world what I will," Gendo grumbled.

"You're not a scientist yet," Fuyutsuki said. "Though I admit you are starting to think more like a metaphysicist. 'I make of the world what I will…'"

"Ah," Gendo said, turning back to the window and laughing. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

"What restraints are there in such a worldview, other than the restraints that we impose upon ourselves?"

"Can the animal known as man truly live with restraint if he is to live in this world?" Gendo countered. "To survive the future? Evolution is not restraint, it's—"

"The precise model of restraint," Fuyutsuki interjected. "Evolution occurs due to the restraints the world foists upon organisms. It is by that restraint the viable organic model is achieved. Striving in opposition _to_ it's restraints."

"Mmm…perhaps." Gendo leaned back. "Is it wrong, though, to use science in a way that furthers the human animal? Prepares it for the future in which it might not survive?"

"What an odd thought," Fuyutsuki replied. "I didn't know that you had such concerns for the welfare of humanity."

"I don't…well…not…it's hard to explain," Gendo sighed. Fuyutsuki didn't press him. He found that Gendo was a man of convictions, even he did not understand those convictions himself. It would take time for him to find what it was that drove him. He had the good sense to seek out Yui, at least. Even if it was for less-than-pure motives, there was wisdom in his actions, despite their purpose.

"I didn't always hate him," Gendo mumbled. Fuyutsuki squinted. Gendo closed his eyes, seeming to drift out and away from the coffee shop.

"Do you hate him now?"

"I…don't know," Gendo conceded. "I don't care for him. I don't want him anywhere near me."

"Hate is a very strong emotion to force upon another human being. Especially a blood relative," Fuyutsuki observed.

"Perhaps…" Gendo agreed. "I just…I'm very tired. Of…a lot of things." For a moment, just a moment, Gendo looked very small, and very young. It was a strange thing to Fuyutsuki, almost a trick of the light, but he could swear that he saw a boy sitting there. A skinny, almost girlish boy, unsure of himself, unsure of world. Unsure of the trust he could place in others. It was just a moment, and then there was Gendo yet again. The skulking, almost hunted look, not muscular, but worn and lean from the abuse that he had put himself through. That he had drawn upon himself.

"We have work to do, Gendo," Fuyutsuki said. "Let's finish up and head back. Miss Ikari should be done with the lecture soon, yes?"

"Yes," Gendo agreed. "I'd rather she didn't know my father was in town."

"My lips are sealed," Fuyutsuki said. They finished their coffee in silence, and returned to their studies.


	5. Samaritan

**Notes from GobHobblin**: I cannot, for the life of me, write a convincing cover letter. I just felt the need to complain about that, because that's what I should be doing right now (sigh).

* * *

As it stood, keeping a secret from Yui was as successful an endeavor as appealing to the sun and moon to cease their crossings. Gendo was napping on a couch in one of the student common areas when he felt someone pinch his foot. He opened one eye to see Yui staring down at him, her face drawn.

"Are you okay?"

"Of course," he replied. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you had a run in with your dad and it went bad," she answered.

"Fuyutsuki talks to much," Gendo grumped, turning his face away from her. Yui narrowed her eyes, turned, and sat down with a huff, right in the center of Gendo's stomach. He whooped as his breath was squeezed out. She was not a heavy woman at all, but she was doing a good job of focusing all of her weight in the smallest area as possible, and Gendo was at a grave disadvantage.

"For your information, I didn't talk to Fuyutsuki-sensei," she snapped. "I found out about it when I passed facilities on their way out of the annex. That's when I learned about the door, which is when I started asking _around_."

"I can't talk to you if I can't breathe," Gendo whispered, his legs popping up in the air and his face turning red.

"Really? Because you had _nothing_ to talk about," she sniffed. "You don't need breath to talk about nothing. Meditate on that for a moment." Gendo did not, for he instead pinched Yui on the seat of her pants. Yelping, she hopped up. Gasping, Gendo took the opening to sit up and relax his stomach muscles. "Really, Gendo Rokubungi, that was _quite fresh_," she snapped, rubbing the spot he pinched her. She looked furious. It made Gendo blush a little: she rarely got angry, and when she did, she looked very pretty.

"Desperate measures," he explained, rubbing his abdomen. She turned, and began to plop down again, this time on his legs. He had just the presence of mind to draw them up to his chin, barely missing the window between Yui and the couch. She crossed her arms, and gave him a sardonic look.

"Learning so quickly," she said.

"There's nothing to talk about, with that," he snapped.

"With _what_?"

"With…my father. That's all."

"That tone says there's a _lot_ to talk about," Yui sighed.

"Not now," Gendo pleaded. "It's going to take some time to discuss fathers, being a father, the whole…dad thing. All the connective words are a little sour for me."

"Well, _you_ might be a father, someday," Yui insisted. "I mean, you want to have kids someday, right? Be a father yourself?"

"I'll be frank, I would be an awful father. If you plan on making a dad out of me, then maybe we should just call this thing between us off before we get more involved." He couldn't believe he had said it, but he had. The prospect of raising a child was so terrifying to him that he had all but willingly thrown his ticket to Seele out with the dishwater.

Yui shook her head. "Gendo, you no longer have a choice in the matter: I've got a stake in you. You're an investment. I plan on having kids with you. I want them to have my good looks and your noble brow. And your eyes, I really do adore your eyes."

"You seem dead-set on getting me into a matrimonial relationship. I thought _I _was the one pursuing _you_." He said it in a mocking tone, and Yui turned towards him, her expression earnest.

"I'm serious. Someday I'm going to make you Mr. Yui Ikari," she said.

He laughed for a moment…then ran her words through his mind one more time. "Wait a minute, what do you mean by that? Mr. _Yui Ikari_?"

Yui assumed a very coy posture, straightening her arms and rolling her head away shyly. Her cheeks had turned a rosy hue. "Well…you know…Rokubungi is such a _silly_ name, and all, and Gendo _Ikari_ has a much finer ring to it."

"I don't buy the act: I know for a fact you can blush on command."

"Cannot!"

"You've done it twice now. This is the third time," Gendo countered.

"When have I 'blushed on command?'"

"The first time was one week ago, when you were trying to persuade me to go buy your groceries for you. The second time was three nights ago, when I disagreed about the movie we wanted to see."

"…I should stop doing that," Yui mused thoughtfully. "If I use all of my good tricks up front, I'll never have the right amount of control over you."

"I agree with you about the name."

"Hmm?" Yui turned back to Gendo, surprised. "I was half-joking…"

"And you were half-serious. And I know why: no one in Seele knows Rokubungi, but everyone knows Ikari." Her bland expression settled for a moment, and then she grinned like a cat, her eyes narrow.

"You've thought out all the particulars, haven't you?"

"Rokubungi is a name that's given me nothing but trouble," he murmured. "I'll kill Gendo Rokubungi and make myself Gendo Ikari." The devious look on Yui's face melted away.

"You don't _have_ to marry me to get into Seele, you know," she said. "There are other ways, some more guaranteed than others." Gendo's eyes widened in surprise. She had all but offered him a way out, and it had been something that pressed on his mind in the past month. They had spoken very frankly about marriage in that short time, both of them recognizing the very frank reasons behind such a union. Romance hadn't — entirely— factored into it in any strong way. Gendo himself placed little stock in the instutition of marriage beyond a sharing of names, rights, and tax benefits. When Yui gave him that offer, it occurred to him that he had not thought that way in _this_ potential marriage. Whether or not he had consciously considered the implications of affairs and scandals within such a union, he had felt something…oppressive about it. He felt touched by Yui's gesture.

"I'm invested," he said, stuttering a little. Yui searched his face, and smiled. Whatever she had found, she liked it.

"Oh, I've got you hook, line, and sinker, don't I?" she teased.

"You can keep telling yourself that," Gendo said through a grin.

"I think you should pick where we eat tonight," Yui announced.

"At home, in your apartment, I'll cook."

"Ooh!" Yui squeaked. "A home cooked dinner! How domestic!" She wiggled her shoulders in delight. "And that gives you all the time to tell me about your father."

"No," Gendo insisted. "Not…tonight. I need some more time on that. Please?"

"Phooey," Yui said in a child's voice. "It's been so hard not to peek at the public records."

"And I appreciate it," Gendo sighed. Yui smiled at him, leaned over, and kissed that secret place between the nose and the cheek, the spot only lovers spoke to each other with.

"Take your time," she said. "White wine, tonight?"

"Sake, actually. Have you ever had Hannya?"

"Yes. Nice and spicy. Very sweet."

"Three bottles, if you please."

"Three? Oh, dear." Yui stood, shaking her head. "I do not know _what_ you think you'll get away with if you want that much Hannya."

"My intentions are exactly at the level you've set for me," he said, holding his hands up defensively.

"You always know the right thing to say," Yui teased, flouncing away. Gendo studied her as she left, finding that he reveled in every detail. Her height. The color her hair and its particular cut. The little poetry of movement that was her particular walk, the way she moved her hands and her hips and her shoulders just _this_ way, or _that_ way. Gendo smiled to himself, sadly. He was involved much more than he planned to be. It made him wonder, in that moment, what it was about him that Yui had seen. The trait that had told her, 'Take this man. Keep him, and you won't regret it.' She didn't make foolish decisions.

Why, then, did Gendo feel like he was a foolish decision? He slumped down on the couch, crossing his arms and scowling.

* * *

"God, don't cut yourself…." Yui murmured, standing at the edge of the kitchen. Gendo had been slicing cuts of beef and chicken, and he was doing so with a bit of flourish.

"I've cut myself enough," he said. "I won't be cutting myself again." Each strip he produced came from a deft, easy slice from Yui's santoku knife. It was, he noted, like all the other cooking knives in her kitchen: brand new and untouched. Finishing his cuts, he rolled the knife handle easily on his fingers as he deposited it to the sink. He then took a pairing knife to trim away some of the gristle from the meat. He probably shouldn't have used a pairing knife, but he was a self-taught cook. He had a tendency to use whatever was within reach. He himself only had a cook knife in his collection, and it was the primary tool he learned by.

Yui watched with newfound appreciation of Gendo. "So, what, were you a butcher when you were a kid? Or a…yakuza, or something?"

"I thought my file indicated my knife skills learned in the school of hard knocks," he retorted. Yui crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows in mild bemusement. He laughed at the expression. "I did the cooking in the house. My dad was useless for it. If I didn't want to starve or live on noodles, I had to teach myself."

"It looks like quite the talent," Yui noted.

"I was about to ask you, in that vein," he continued, putting the pairing knife down and grabbing a random steak knife from her collection. "Why so shiny?" He held the handle between two fingers, holding it just so that Yui could see the blade.

"Because I take care of my cutlery?" she said, shrugging.

"These aren't used, Ms. Ikari," Gendo accused.

"They are, too…_You're_ using them," she pouted.

"Do you know how to cook?" Gendo asked, turning to look at her with a sly glance. Yui blushed, an honest one this time. It wasn't from embarrassment, though. She always blushed when he called her on her fibs.

"Barely," she admitted. "I know a few ingredients, but as you can imagine, I have a comfortable stipend. I tend to…eat out a lot."

"That'll go straight to your guts. Then your hips, and before you know it, you won't be able to get through doors," he said loftily.

"What a crude thing to say," Yui whined. "I swear, this verbal abuse will have to be dealt with. You don't want to see what I look like when I get mean."

"What I was _trying_ to say," Gendo said, without missing a beat, "Is that you should rely on me to actually cook healthy things for you, instead of spending your money on questionable food. Are you actually saying you don't _want_ me to pamper you?"

"Oh-ho-ho…you're good. Bravo, Gendo, bravo." She smiled broadly at him, watching as he tossed the gristle into the trash can. He already had a skillet with oil on the stove, heating at a low temperature. He started with the beef, flicking the purple blocks of meat into the hot oil. Yui watched the practiced motions, and drifted close to him. She laid a hand on his elbow.

"I'm…sorry you had to learn to cook. For yourself. I mean…for the reasons you had to," Yui said. Gendo shrugged, and smirked at her. It was his default shield, that smirk.

"It was what it was," he replied.

"I don't think it was fair, though," Yui said. "I'm not on the best terms with my father, but I can't say that…we have what…well…what you and your father have."

"Me and my father don't have _anything_. You and yours have _something_. That's the fundamental difference." He shook his head. "I can't talk about this tonight."

"You were doing well, though."

"Don't wheedle it out of me, Yui."

"I may have to, if you keep moping like this. It's cute when you mope, but only to a certain point. One way or the other, I'm going to get the whole story out of—"

Gendo turned, scooping Yui towards him with one arm. She gasped gently, and he gave her a soft, sweet kiss on her bottom lip. Nothing too dramatic…but it was the first time their lips had touched. Gendo gently broke away from her. Yui touched her lips with her fingers, looking distant and happy at the same time. She had a smile all her own, like she had just been given a great secret.

"Really, and I haven't even had any sake yet," she said quietly. "I'll let it slide."

"You'll let it slide?"

"Well, _I_ wanted to be the one to make the first move on you," she said, only half-pouting. "You beat me to it."

"I've had a great mentor for the past month," he said. There was genuine affection in the words, and Yui smiled, leaning into the arm and grasping it gently with both hands. Her eyes glittered at him, and Gendo felt as though he was the most important man in the world in that moment. Something in his expression made Yui feel shy, and she glanced away. She licked her lips, and nodded to the skillet.

"The beef is burning," she said. He glanced down, and quickly disentangled himself from her. A lot of smoke was pouring off of the beef strips. As he scrambled to turn the meat over, Yui swayed into him, bumping his hips with her own. "Try not to get cocky, Gendo."

"Oh, I know exactly where I stand," he retorted through his smirk.


	6. Shiva

**Notes from GobHobblin: **Okay, me and my dad played, like, the worst game of golf a week ago. It was fun…but shameful to the game. I kid you not, we both did three mulligans on the first tee-off. It kind of influenced the direction of this chapter…

* * *

Japan was known for having quality golf courses, and Fuyutsuki enjoyed a game every now and then. Primarily, the most he did with golf was to go down to a local driving range and work through a bucket, or to practice pitching in the park with a few golf balls and a pitching wedge. When taking a break between writing or grading, he would putt in his office with a coffee mug as the hole. For him, golf was a gentle, almost cathartic exercise in strength and release, knowing when to hit the perfect sweet spot between bodily motion, muscular strength, and physics itself to produce a long drive or a on-spot putt. When he offered to take Gendo golfing, he thought he was doing the younger man a favor.

Ten strokes into the first hole, and Fuyutsuki was beginning to regret that decision.

"Oh, come on!" Gendo snapped, as his eleventh stroke went far and too the right, sailing past the fairway's boundary and into some bushes.

"I'll let you drop it, but I don't have an unlimited number of replacements," Fuyutsuki sighed, leaning gently on his five-iron. Gendo raised the club to drive it into the ground. "I like this club, don't get us kicked out. And those clubs are rentals! Do you have the money to pay for replacement clubs?"

"This is supposed to be relaxing. _You_ said this was relaxing," Gendo snapped, still gripping the club like a weapon.

"It _is_ relaxing. You don't have to be _good_ at golf to enjoy it," Fuyutsuki insisted. "You just keep over-controlling your swing. It is absolutely killing your game."

"I have 'a game?' _This_ is having 'a game?'" Gendo snapped.

"Yeah," Fuyutsuki said, "It's a game based on scaring off local wildlife and threatening our fellow golfers, but it _is_ a game." Smiling ruefully, Fuytuski swung his club in a tight arch before resting it on his shoulder. "Never said it was a good game you had, did I?"

Gendo glowered at Fuyutsuki for a moment before lowering the club. "All right, explain it again."

"Watch this time, I'll put this one on the green for you." Fuyutsuki dropped a ball on the manicured grass, and took up a spot next to it. He waggled a moment, releasing tension and settling into the triangle. The shoulders to the arms, meeting in apex at the club, the pinkie of his dominant hand locking with the index finger of the non-dominant. "Okay, you see, there's all the normal advice, right? Keep your eye on the ball and all that. You focus your attention on the ball, all the way through the swing. It's your target, right?"

"Yeah," Gendo mumbled, studying Fuyutsuki.

"That means you keep your head on the after-image, as well. When you make contact, you continue to look at where the ball was. Lift your head up too soon, you've skinned the ball and it'll just go bouncing along the ground and that's a mess."

"I get that," Gendo said impatiently.

"What you don't get is the physics," Fuyutsuki said, slowly raising the club over his shoulders and then lowering it again. "You have to balance your swing between control and chaos."

"…What?"

"You _have_ to muscle it a _little_. Push with one hand, pull with the other, all that. Muscle it _too_ much, and your shot careens left or right. You have to let the club drop, you see? It has to be at the perfect center point of your triangle." Fuyutsuki raised the club. "Like so…."

The club whistled down almost gently, connecting with the ball. It shot up in the air, floated lazily through the sky, before passing the green and landing in the rough beyond. Fuyutuski made a face.

"Well…it's not a hundred percent every time, but still…." He shrugged and returned to the cart. For a moment, Gendo gazed after the departing image of the ball. Chaos and control were new concepts to him. Most of his life had been spent finding control in one way or another, muscling through and over obstacles or fleeing from the ones he couldn't. Fight or flight.

He attempted to apply Fuyutsuki's lesson for the next eight holes, with varying degrees of success. By the time they reached the clubhouse on the ninth hole, Gendo was all but begging for an end to the game.

"Shut up and drink your beer," Fuyutsuki told the red-faced man, handing him a cold glass. "Yui's right: you are a whiner."

"The hell I am," Gendo grumbled, accepting the glass.

"Then finish this game. Nine more holes. And drink your beer." Gendo glared at the glass, as though skeptical of it. "Seriously, though, you are an atrocious golfer. Didn't your dad ever take you golfing, or…get you into sports?"

"Still poking around that topic?" Gendo mumbled. The beer was set on the table between them. He had yet to drink from it. Fuyutsuki took a cautious sip from his own glass.

"The man did break into my office," Fuyutsuki retorted. "I think you owe me _something_ of an explanation to that."

"I haven't even told Yui about this. What makes you think I would tell you, huh?" Fuyutsuki gave Gendo a withering glare.

"He _broke_ into my office," Fuyutsuki insisted. Gendo grumped, sliding down into the chair and gazing out over the golf course. The day was bright, and the first, eighth, ninth, and eighteenth holes lay splayed before them, four great expanses of bright and sloppy green, separated by neatly manicured trees and cart ways.

"It was after my mother died, okay?" Gendo mumbled. "He…lost his spark after that, I think. I was too young to know my mother, or know him when he was with her. All I know is that now, the man can't zip up his pants without instructions on it. He just…" Gendo shrugged.

"You made your own way of it, did you?" Fuyutsuki asked. Gendo said nothing, unwilling to continue. "You should talk to Yui about it."

"I…have no desire…to talk to _anyone_ about it," Gendo snapped.

"How are things with you and Yui?" Fuyutsuki responded, casually. Gendo turned towards him in surprise at the shift in conversation.

"They're…fine. It's all fine," Gendo said. "Better than fine, actually. She seems convinced I'm the man she needs to marry."

"And you?"

"…I…wouldn't mind it."

"You're being coy," Fuyutsuki said, placing his half-empty glass on the table. "You are head over heels for that woman and I know it. Hell, _I'm_ head over heels for her. I think every man that walks into her life finds himself falling in love with Yui Ikari." Gendo studied the professor with something like wonder. The man had a wistful look on his face, almost sad. "I could resent you for what you have, but I don't." The man turned back to Gendo, and gave him an honest smile. "I can envy you, and support you in having something that's quite wonderful."

"…Did…Does Yui know that you—"

"No, no. Well…I take that back. I'm certain she does. She wouldn't have acted on it, and she would certainly have shot me down if I tried to. No, I wasn't the man for her." Fuyutsuki waved distractedly at the air. "The point is, I'm more concerned about you and her."

"In what way?"

"You have a habit of building walls, Gendo. I swear, you have to be one of the biggest cowards I have ever met." Gendo made a fist, and stared at Fuyutsuki, his lips tightening. Fuyutsuki pushed Gendo's beer closer to him. "It's true, you know. You have a habit of running from things."

"When have I run from anything? Hell, the first time we met, you were bailing me out of prison for a fight."

"Fights are simply one way of running," Fuyutsuki said. "You think that fighting with your fists is confronting something? For you, it's catharsis: the justification that you deserve punishment and pain. That you need to _feel_ pain."

Gendo narrowed his eyes. "And here I thought you were a metaphysical biologist."

"It requires _something_ of a grasp on psychology, Gendo. You should have figured that out, by now," Fuyutsuki sighed. Gendo finally picked up the beer, and sipped cautiously at it.

"So you say I run from things," Gendo grumbled. "You don't see me running from Yui."

"But you are, Gendo," Fuyutsuki insisted. "Perhaps you wish to spend your life with her, and perhaps you will. You can't do that while hiding portions of yourself from her. That's running in place, you see. You run away without leaving."

"I don't like where this is going…."

"You can sit on this with me all you want," Fuyutsuki said, "But I insist you stop hiding it from Yui."

"…I just…don't feel…right about…." Gendo mumbled, intensely uncomfortable at the thought of talking about his past with his girlfriend.

"Stop thinking about it now," Fuyutsuki said, "Just focus on the next nine holes."

* * *

Yui had her kitchen knives laid out in front of her on the counter. She perused them with her arms crossed. "Okay, troops," she said, "Here's the deal: in this modern Japanese society, certain things are still expected from ladies. Sexist though that may be, a fact is a fact. I need to learn how to cook." She gave each and every blade a look of utter contempt and scrutiny. "As tempting as it would be make Gendo a stay-at-home hubby, I think it's safe to say that the world would be lessened by such a decision. And while I have _no_ intention of spending the rest of my life bundled up in an apron, it is only proper that both members of a healthy relationship take on their fair share of things. If he cooks, I cook, you see."

She didn't like the attitude of the paring knife, and pointed an accusing finger at it. "Don't you dare go judging me. I _can_ cook! I can build a living cell-culture out of a glob of protein and carbon shavings. You think I can't cook?" She sniffed, and grabbed one of the six cookbooks she had that had never, once, been opened. It was titled _Thirty Minute Recipes_, so she figured it was a good place to start.

"Here," she said. "Udon noodles in beef broth with pan-cooked chicken cutlets. I can do that. Easy." Forty minutes later, and nowhere near done, Yui was trying to figure out why hear chicken cutlets looked so sad when she heard the front door open. She heard someone stomp through the apartment, and realized they were wearing shoes. In mild alarm, she turned, to see Gendo standing in the kitchen doorway. He looked like he had been lost for weeks.

For his part, Gendo had entered the apartment with a purpose. He planned to follow through on that purpose no matter how much it made him want to vomit in panic. He hadn't stopped to remove his shoes, because it would have given him time to second-guess himself. He simply pushed in, deciding he would simply buy Yui more tatami mats. He made it to the kitchen doorway, and almost forgot what he was going to say: it looked as though a bomb had gone off in there. Yui's hair was quite disheveled, what appeared to be beef broth stained her hands and apron, and something was boiling over on the stove. For just a moment, he almost forgot why he was there. And then he remembered, threw his hands open wide, and forged ahead.

"I hate my dad!" he said. "He slapped me around a lot, left us starving from gambling problems. He was lazy, good for nothing, and never got over my mom's death. When I was sixteen, I got in a fistfight with him and left home. I spent the rest of my high school years living at my sensei's apartment before getting into Tokyo University on good grades. I got kicked out my sophomore year when I got into another fistfight with my dad on the student commons. I transferred to…what the hell happened here?"

"…I was cooking," Yui said. Gendo studied the small kitchen. This was not cooking, this was complete and utter chaos. His gaze passed to the right, and he flinched back when he saw that the large kitchen knife jutted from the door frame.

"I…have no idea how _that_ happened," Yui said cautiously, putting a hand on one hip and pointing with the other, "But, I got to tell you, I bet it was a-_maz_-ing."

"…What were you cooking?"

"Um…udon noodles. What were you saying, about…Tokyo University and all that?"

"…I can't remember," Gendo mumbled, reaching out and taking the knife by the handle. At least an inch of the blade had been buried into the frame. "Seriously, did you…_throw_ this or…."

"I can cook!" she snapped, indignantly.

"I…didn't say you couldn't," Gendo replied.

"You were thinking it," Yui accused.

"How are the noodles?"

"…Burned."

"How do you _burn_ noodles?"

"I don't _know_," Yui whined, throwing her arms up. "I can't believe how complicated I've made this. Fix this right now, Gendo." He sighed, rolling the knife on his palm and reversing the blade smoothly. "And teach me how to do that, too," Yui whined.

"Why would you need to know how to do that? No, never mind. I don't want to know," Gendo sighed. He decided the first thing to do was clean up the kitchen.

As Gendo went about the business of clearing away the mess, he felt Yui's head bump into his back. "You were telling me about your dad," she said. "I'm sorry I interrupted."

"You didn't," Gendo said. "I just…needed to tell you. Fuyutsuki said I should."

"Did you tell him first!?" she whined.

"Some of it, but not all," Gendo said, his tone defensive. "He took me golfing today."

"How did that go?"

"I may have killed a duck," the man grumbled.

"We're both screw-ups, aren't we?" Yui sighed, bumping her forehead into his back a little more insistently. He turned around, and she nestled against his chest. "You don't have to tell me now, but thank you." Gendo wrapped his arms around her and sighed, relaxing into the hug. "So…" Yui ventured, "Who won the first fight?"

"My dad broke my nose and threw me out of the house. Down a flight of stairs."

"Good God,"

"Yeah, I broke my wrist and two ribs. I walked the whole way to my sensei's house sobbing."

"And no one helped you?"

"Of course not. No one wants to get involved. You know how it can be," Gendo mumbled.

"What about the next fight?" Yui asked, pulling away from the hug by pushing Gendo lightly against a counter.

"Oh, I won that one. I was a second-year college student without a lifetime of bad decisions behind me."

"You were just starting to make your bad decisions, right?" Yui said mischievously.

"Oh, yes," Gendo agreed, pecking her on the forehead. "I'm taking you out tonight. I'll show you how to make tempura tomorrow, okay?"

"I like tempura."

"That's why I'm going to teach you," Gendo agreed.

* * *

There was a ramen stall not far from Yui's apartment, where the pair liked to eat when quality was not necessary. The food was still good, though, and Yui liked the garlic tofu ramen while Gendo enjoyed their shrimp ramen and miso. It wasn't great food, but it was filling, and tasty. The two of them made their orders, and sat happily munching their food while washing it down with fruit sodas. They were halfway through their meal when Gendo detected a shift in Yui's mood. He turned to her, and watched as she stirred her noodles nervously.

"Gendo," she asked, cautiously, "When you say you stayed at your sensei's…was that…I mean…." Yui trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable. Gendo smiled, looking down at his noodles.

"You think I took advantage of some poor single woman with bad self-esteem issues? Like in a manga?"

"I just…"

"Fifty-three year old man with a wife and a grown daughter. The daughter had moved out, they let me have her room. They were…very nice to me." He blinked at the memory. "I haven't…kept in touch like I should."

"That's…a much better scenario than I thought it would be," Yui murmured.

"Would you have been jealous?" Gendo teased.

"Horrified," Yui said, seriously. Gendo's smile faded. She continued, "I already know that you had a rough childhood. I'm sorry for asking it, I just…it would have been awful. If that had been how you grew into adulthood. That's too young for something like that."

"I was too young for a lot of things that happened to me," Gendo countered. "But I see your point."

"You don't seem to be having trouble talking about it, right now," Yui suggested. Gendo cocked his head, surprised at that observation.

"You know, you're right…I was so worked up about doing this…huh." Gendo shrugged. "I never thought it would be easy to do, but I imagine it's like…rolling a boulder down a hill. Once you give it momentum, it just…goes."

"I'm glad you're comfortable about this," she said, smiling.

"What about you?" he asked. "You and you're father?"

"Pumping me for information?" she asked, coyly.

"Well…"

"Saito Ikari," Yui declared, "Is a very important man with very important things to do." She waved her chopsticks as though pointing at a board. "A very wealthy man with great influence on affairs of industry and state. The very man to carry forward the proud Ikari family tradition into the future." She smiled meekly. "That's what the pamphlet's would say."

"You have a good relationship with him?"

"Sort of," she said with a squint. "I'm…an only child, and a girl. My mother passed away as well, I'm sure you know. He sort of…spoiled me after that."

"You turned out all right," Gendo observed.

"Not many kid's grow up the way I do," Yui said, raising an eyebrow.

"Let me guess: all girl's school, private, probably Catholic for the education. Member of the student council, equestrian club, science club, softball club…"

"You're not guessing, you creep, you already researched all that stuff," Yui pouted. "It's no fun talking about my past to someone who already knows it!"

"You lived away from home."

"Well…yes." Yui glanced at him. "You want to know why?"

"A bit."

"…When you meet my father, you'll see."

"When will that happen?" Gendo asked, picking at a piece of shrimp.

"After we get married."

"Af…_After_!?" Gendo dropped his chopsticks, and stared at Yui in surprise.

"Yes, after," she said. "In which case, you will be married to me, have taken my name, which will show deference to a more 'important' family." Yui had placed an odd emphasis on the word 'important,' and rolled her eyes as she did. "It will be easier to induct you into Seele at that point. He will have no choice _but_ to, or be made to look like a fool to the other members."

"I take it that will not leave me in very good graces with him…"

"It will _not_. On the other hand, you will be where you wish to be." Gendo laid a hand across Yui's, and she turned to him with mild surprise. The look he gave her was intense, and she swallowed under its pressure.

"Yui, sometimes I think you have your own agenda in these things," Gendo said.

"Whatever makes you think that?" Yui asked sweetly, but her voice cracked a bit. Gendo's eyes softened, but it made him look sad, or defeated. Yui felt a pang of guilt, then.

"Perhaps I see things more than you realize," Gendo replied.

"If I did have my own agenda…would you walk away?" Yui asked.

"…No." Gendo turned back to his food. "I don't think I could." The rest of the dinner was in silence.


	7. Heisenberg

Gendo opened his eyes, looking up at his ceiling in the dark bedroom. He had been dreaming. Before him had been a child made of sand, and it had kept being blown away. He couldn't remember how the child looked, or even if it had been a boy or a girl, but something about it was so _important_, so desperately important to him. He attempted to pack more sand onto the child, to keep it from disintegrating, but the action became more desperate, more futile. In no time at all, Gendo had been reduced to a blubbering mess, watching finally and fearfully as the last trace of the child was swept away and he was alone.

"What would that mean?" he whispered to the dark. Something Jungian, no doubt. He was tempted to ask Fuyutsuki about it, but he knew, as he lay under his sheets, that he never would. The dream had frightened him, and he wished to forget it. He sniffed, rolling over and feeling the emptiness of the room around him. He had found, day by day, he wanted more and more to sleep next to Yui. What surprised him most about this was the general lack of lust in the desire. There was lust, to be certain, but the need to be asleep next to a warm, living body, to know that when you woke up, there would be no solitude…it had become an obsession. Compelling and aching.

He was very lonely.

Gendo rubbed his eyes and checked his clock. 2:20 in the morning. He hadn't been sleeping very long, had he? He grumbled, and rolled out of his bed. He intended to drink himself back into sleep, and hopefully erase the last vestige of the dream. As he padded through the dark room in boxers and a t-shirt, he kept trying to place the child. Why was it so important? Why did it hurt so badly when it vanished? He snuffled as he paused next to his bureau, and picked up his S-DAT player. His brain was too full.

In the kitchen, he uncorked a bottle of American bourbon that he had gotten as a gift three days ago. A celebratory token, for successfully defending his dissertation. Oswald Spengler, the proto-metaphysical biologist: that had been a laugh. He smiled as he popped his earphones on, and poured a glass. The three-hundred page work had been twenty percent actual research, ten percent of networking (but such _important_ networking), and the remainder was complete, utter crap. The nice thing about a topic like metaphysics was that, as long as one made one's argument obscure enough, one could do a marvelous job of _sounding_ like one had an actual thesis to go on. In the end, he had confused his dissertation board so thoroughly, they had passed his work and granted him his doctorate simply to avoid having to deal with him again. The entire time, Fuyutsuki had been present, not to question but to observe. He had been visibly trying not to laugh.

Hitting the play button, he heard the light start of a jazz beat, snare and toms beating out a cool, staccato rhythm, driven by the light tapping of hi-hat cymbals. Creeping in, as though shy and uncertain, was a single, faint female vocalist. Then, at the moment he sat down and his eyes closed, strings joined her, a bass guitar, light keyboards. Cool minor notes, sad and poignant but soaring and lifting at the same time. The effect was entrancing, as her voice was still faint but so present, so insistent. He forgot about the bourbon for a moment, simply savoring the sound. It was an American duo, a man and woman with an ever shifting background of supporting musicians, a group that he had found by accident and had never been able to shake. They always seemed to poke themselves into his view, whenever he needed them. He slowly traced his finger on the table top, drawing shapes in time with the music. He paused to sip at the bourbon, and waited as the song slowly cascaded down into a soft, almost pleasing thump.

In the brief silence between the first song and the second one, there was a knock at his front door. He opened his eyes and glared. The timing had jarred him, and the sensation that someone was knocking on his door at nearly three in the morning unnerved him. He removed his headphones and took a knife from a drawer, and crossed the apartment. He hadn't seen his father in nearly a semester, and the timing seemed too…perfect. Having finished the dissertation, having completed his doctorate in a _very_ record time….

He glanced into the peephole, and almost dropped the knife onto his barefoot. It was Yui. He opened the door, not bothering to hide the fact that he was in his boxers and holding a knife.

She blinked in surprise, but the expression faded. "Why, Gendo," she said. "It's like you were expecting me."

"Not at all," he said, rolling the knife smoothly in his hand and taking the blade safely into this palm. "It's 2:30 in the morning. Why are you here?"

"Because I had a hunch you would be awake," she said.

"Do you have cameras in my apartment? Keeping tabs on my activities?"

"Would it make you feel better if I said yes?"

"…Not really."

"Well, I don't, though the idea does sound nice." She rocked on her heels, smiling sweetly. "I had a feeling, believe it or not. That's all."

"A feeling?"

"Well, let's see…a year after meeting Fuyutsuki-sensei, you crank out a three-hundred page dissertation on the most _dubious_ of topics, complete with research, and get a doctorate. _I _can't do that, and I'm pretty sure I'm a hell of a lot smarter than you."

"I imagine so, yes," Gendo admitted.

"I figured that, maybe, you were in a spiral."

"A spiral?"

"Yes. Heading down." She traced a looping circle towards the floor with a single finger. "After somehow pulling off a feat like that, I imagine depression, bewilderment, doubt…all those things you pushed down in order to…how _did_ you do that, anyways?"

"Yui, what was I doing before we met?"

"An excellent point," she said, brushing past him and kicking her shoes off in the doorway. He grunted as he backed up: in his surprise, he had gripped the blade a tad too tightly and cut one of his fingers. "Of course, if it was all just a con, Fuyutsuki-sensei would have spotted it right at the start."

Gendo smirked. "I knew someone, came into a graduate program fresh from his degree. Determined to get his master's and his doctorate in two years. He did it in one and a half." He sucked at the bleeding finger as Yui turned on the light to his small living room and flopped down on the couch.

"I imagine he also worked a lot harder than you did," Yui said, draping an arm across her eyes.

"Yes," Gendo admitted. "To tell the truth, I think Fuyutsuki pretty much agreed a lot of it was fluff. He knew it would pass muster, though…if only for confusing anybody who read it." He closed the door and returned to the kitchen to wash his cut. "In the end, they probably felt embarrassed for not understanding portions of it."

"Do explain."

"There's a fine threshold in failing to understand something," Gendo said, "On the one hand, if you read something you don't understand because it's obviously mush, you're going to call a spade a spade. It's crap, and that's all there is to it. On the other hand, there is a spectrum that makes you wonder if your failure to comprehend is because the work itself is fine, it's just something wrong with _you_. At least one of those professors passed my work because they couldn't understand what had been written, but they were afraid that, somehow, I was smarter than them. They passed it because they didn't want to be called on not understanding it."

"That seems like a lot of work," Yui giggled. "Seriously, for that much effort, you could have done an _actual_ and feasible thesis."

"It's not work to me," Gendo said. "I knew who was going to be on the dissertation committee. It was just a matter of…editing."

Yui sighed. "The mysteries of metaphysical biology are wasted on you. You should have gone to psychology. You have a natural talent for it."

"Except where you're concerned," he said, glancing down at his legs. He should really put some pants on. He ducked into his bedroom as Yui called after him.

"That's because I'm a mystery," she said. "I'm mysterious, and you can't figure me out."

"And you have my number, right?" he asked, grabbing some sweat pants out of a drawer.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I knew you'd be awake, didn't I? And drinking in the dark like some sad hikkimori."

"And yet we've just graduated you to boiling pasta, and still aren't ready to let you tackle tempura," he said.

"That was uncalled for," she pouted, as he came back into the apartment proper. "I get nervous around the oil."

"You recently observed and handled a sample of smallpox," he said flatly.

"Smallpox doesn't burn you," Yui snapped.

"Oh, no. Because it's known for being the the most gentle and playful of viral strains," Gendo retorted, dry as kindling. He poured a second glass of bourbon and handed it to her.

"How thoughtful," she said sweetly.

"I am glad to see you," he admitted. Green eyes glittered up at him. He smiled weakly, and headed back to grab his own drink when soft fingers gripped his hand. Gendo glanced down at her.

"You look spent," she said, concerned. "I was only half-joking when I said all that, earlier. I think you did work hard, in your own way. I'm worried you burned yourself out doing it."

"Hardly, and to be fair, it wasn't a very difficult topic. Oswald Spengler may have been an historiographer, but his characterization of nations as organisms parlays neatly in metaphysical theory and doctrine. I did _abuse_ the connections a lot, but style makes up for a lot of the…loopholes." He smiled weakly. "It is what it is."

"Then why are you up? What has you feeling uneasy?" Yui studied his face for a second, then lowered her face shyly. "I mean, you _do_ feel uneasy, right? I'm not just assuming?"

"I had a dream," Gendo said. "It left me in a weird state."

"A dream?" Yui sat up, interested. "Go get your drink and then tell me about it." Gendo did. He described the feeling, the child, the battle against the wind. The despair. The ache. He sat across from the couch as he spoke, perched on a small footrest. Yui sat cross-legged, every now and then taking a small sip from her bourbon. By the time Gendo had finished, he had emptied his glass, and hers was halfway down. Her eyes were a bit glassier than when she had come in, and when she spoke, the words were a little slower. Despite that, it was clear that Yui was still present and in the moment.

"Have you considered what the child might represent?" she asked. "Perhaps a part of yourself? An unconscious aspect that you're giving up, or are afraid that you're going to lose?"

"Maybe," he said, not sold on the theory. "It felt like I wouldn't ever be whole if I lost it, but…it didn't feel like _me_." He twisted his wrist slowly, watching a single bead of liquid sliding along the bottom of his glass.

"You of all people should know that it doesn't _have_ to feel like you to represent an inner aspect," Yui said, flicking the tip of his nose as she spoke. It wasn't a painful action, but it made him sit up and pay attention to her. "In many ways, we are strangers to ourselves. Those things that linger in our subconscious, when we turn to face them, are just as strange to us as if we were meeting a new person for the first time."

"That's academic," he said. "Despite that, I still feel this was…external, I guess, would be the proper term. It felt like the child in question wasn't something internal, but that it was something outside of me. Something I was interacting with, from in to out."

"So what could it represent, in that sense?"

"The symbolism is beyond me. Dream interpretation is something that certainly _exists_ within metaphysical biology, if simply for the fact that certain organisms dream, and those dreams have meaning and purpose. In the very least, they're critical to the processing and storing of acquired data. That being said, a lot of what does exist is strongly influenced by Jungian concepts of dreaming, which, while useful…it's…." He shrugged.

"Outdated and incomplete," Yui finished for him. "And you aren't a specialist in dream interpretation."

"God, no," Gendo sighed.

"So…what could it mean?"

For a moment, Gendo said nothing. He allowed the silence to linger, pondering the question. What _could_ it mean? He had eliminated what he thought the child didn't mean, but that had eliminated a lot of logical prospects. He cocked an eyebrow…

Sometimes, a spade is a spade.

"It may be just that. A child."

"Ooh…a prophetic dream," Yui intoned. Gendo smirked.

"Hardly," he chided.

"No, wait, let me finish," Yui snapped.

"I didn't know you had started something," Gendo said. Yui flicked his nose again.

"I've been talking to Mei over in the physics department, and she's was telling me about this concept of time. That time itself is immutable, that what is going to happen is going to happen, and that happened in the past was what would have happened all along. Does that make sense?"

"That time is fixed, past and present."

"Exactly. All events that happen are going to happen: there's no branching paths, only _one_ path, and that the concept of choice is inherently an illusion. The choice is only a choice because you don't know the outcome, but the outcome is already determined."

"Go on."

"If that's the case, then seeing the future is not as improbably as it would otherwise seem, because the future is _unchanging_. You're simply seeing events that will happen, regardless of whether you know or not. And if what's in front of us is going to happen…or, more to the point, _has already happened and we're simply catching up_, then we would be seeing pre-images of those events coming. We might not understand them, but they would be coming."

"I don't buy that," Gendo said. "That implies too much of a fixed nature on reality. The mathematics of causality are simply too diffuse to allow for a fixed path for every element in the system."

"I don't buy it either," Yui admitted. "And neither did Mei, but we had fun dissecting it. Imagine if we've already done this before…that simply the Universe would roll towards a Big Crunch, condense, start a new Big Bang…and we do it all over."

"That's depressing."

"A bit," Yui admitted. "As though we are locked in a cycle, right? Unchanging and unable to escape. Again, I don't buy it myself, either. I believe too much in my own ability to influence outcomes."

"Yui, the Observer," Gendo chided.

"I am Maxwell's demon!" she snapped, thrusting her hands in the air and spilling some bourbon on her hair. "I am the one who knocks!"

"You did, actually," Gendo noted. "On my door, in fact."

"It was meant to be!" she snapped. "I like this bourbon, I want so more bourbon."

"I do, too," Gendo said, standing up and slipping into the kitchen. He returned with the bottle, filling his glass and topping Yui's before resting the bottle carefully on the floor.

"Despite all of that," Yui said, still a little giddy but sipping at her drink carefully, "I think there is something feasible to be said for seeing images. Perhaps they aren't the kind of things that one can point at and say, 'This will happen, and it is meant to be,' but perhaps it's more along the lines of ideas or generalities. We have the notion of what's ahead of us."

"And a notion of how to change it?"

"Perhaps…or at least how to deal with it." Yui looked up, smiling brightly. Her cheeks were very red.

"You're drunk," Gendo said.

"I'm a lightweight!" she giggled happily. "But I'm still in control of my faculties. Beat that!"

"What if it was our child?"

She got very serious. "Why'd you go and spoil the mood?" she moped.

"I didn't mean to," Gendo said, feeling very morose all of a sudden. "It just occurred to me."

"Fears about being a father?"

"…I think, maybe."

"We haven't even slept in the same bed, and already you start worrying about that," Yui sighed. "You put too much stock in the past."

"The past shapes the future…anyone who says otherwise is deluded."

"You aren't your father."

"No, but I _am_ me," Gendo countered.

"And you are fine the way you are," Yui said. She leaned over, and gave him a deep kiss. He tasted her breath, her warmth, all of her, and he almost dropped his glass. She pulled away, and rested her forehead against his. "I like the way you are."

"…You're too kind for your own good, sometimes," he said.

"And you're too much of a pill for your own good, sometimes," Yui retorted. She flopped back, and drained the glass. Gendo gaped at her as she did. She rested the glass on her knee in satisfaction, then made an awful expression and squirmed.

"That's why you sip it," he said as she coughed.

"Awful. Want more!" she insisted, thrusting the glass under his nose. So he poured another glass. Between the two of them, they finished the bottle, talking more about physics, and biology, the outcome of seemingly random coincidence and the nature of what was and was not.

Before long, Yui was slumped onto the couch, snoring lightly. Gendo watched her, for a time. He had watched her nap, from time to time. Usually in the student commons, little catnaps between lectures. This was her dead to the world, a full and honest sleep. Deep and vast, deep and mysterious. He studied the lines of her face, the almost child-like sense of vulnerability and wonder in such a slumber. He felt the goofy grin on his face, and knew that he himself was well past tipsy. That didn't change how much he loved to watch Yui. To look at her. To absorb each detail, file it away, hope that those thoughts never vanished with age.

He stood up…very slowly…and returned the empty bottle and glasses to the kitchen. He made his way back to the couch, and picked Yui up. She was very light, which was a good thing, because even then she threatened to tip him over. Instinctively, she turned towards him and snuggled into him. He carried her into his bed room, and tucked her in. As though she belonged there, she immediately dominated the pillows, throwing an arm over them and pressing into them with a gleeful sigh. Satisfied, Gendo meandered to his closet in a vaguely straight line, took an extra blanket, and worked his way back the couch. He slumped against it, the cushions still smelling strongly of Yui's clothing, her shampoo, her perfume. He drifted into a deep sleep, dreamless except for the sensation of Yui around him.

He didn't feel alone.


	8. Synapse

Gendo awoke the next morning to see two green eyes peering intently at him, framed by soft brown hair. He blinked a bit, and stretched his legs, earning a few audible pops.

"Good morning," Yui said.

"Mmm…morning," he grunted, sniffing loudly and rubbing his eyes. "…What time is it?"

"10:13," Yui said.

"How long have you been scrutinizing me?"

"Since I woke up. About twenty minutes ago or so."

"You'll get a kink in your neck bending over like that."

"It's worth it," she retorted. "You look cute when you sleep."

"I noticed the very same thing about you last night," he replied, folding his hands on his chest and yawning.

"That was sweet of you, by the way," Yui noted, leaning back and yawning grandly herself. "We didn't do anything, did we?"

"Nope," he grumbled, rolling over and facing the couch. "I dare not impugn your honor, lest I taste of your wrath in the morning."

"Make me sound like a monster," Yui grumped, kneeling and leaning on the armrest and burrowing her nose into Gendo's hair. "You smell like sleep."

"Convenient, since I've been sleeping," he retorted. "Do tell, what does that smell like?"

"Like you've been sleeping, of course," she said. "You ask the oddest things."

"What is it the Americans say? Pot calling the kettle black?" She leaned up and over and nipped Gendo's ear. "Ah! Tender there." He reached up to bat her away, but she intercepted the hand and continued to _thup_ happily on his ear. He resigned himself to it, accepting it so long as teeth were not involved. They sat that way for a few minutes, him resting in his half-asleep haze and her thoughtfully nibbling.

"Take me to lunch," she said.

"Anytime," he murmured. She used her teeth again, and he grumbled. He sat up and turned to glare balefully at her. She gave him a firm look right back.

"Take me to lunch _today_. Right now, actually."

"Of course," he grumbled, glancing down at his pajama pants. "That means we go as is."

"Go change," she snapped, pointing at him. "If you treat me to lunch, you do it properly." Gendo stood, passed by Yui on the way to the bedroom…and turned to muss her hair grandly. She whined and batted him away, giving him a mean look through her messy hair as he stumbled off to change.

* * *

Yui wanted burgers, but Gendo was paying, and he insisted on pizza. After a mighty battle of the wills that took all of the fifteen-minute walk to the pizza parlor, Yui relented, only on the condition that she got to pick the toppings. Magnanimously, Gendo conceded this point, and the two of them nestled into a booth to enjoy a pizza topped with octopus on one half, and chicken and ranch on the other. Yui had eclectic tastes in her food, and liked to generally swing out all over the place when she could. She would also generally eat whatever landed in front of her, whereas Gendo was a bit pickier. Still, the pizza toppings seemed a good choice, and Gendo had already tucked away one slice and was starting on his second.

"Did you have better dreams last night?"

"I didn't dream at all, but I feel quite rested," Gendo noted. "How about you?"

"You're bed is not very comfortable. I'll have to do something about that," she noted. "No wonder you're always such a grump."

"I thought you found that endearing."

"I do," Yui replied, sipping at her soda. "Doesn't mean I don't worry about you."

"How kind," he said.

"I am," she agreed, nudging his shin under the table affectionately. "But only because you deserve it."

"I do, don't I?" he said with a smile. Yui smiled back, rocking in place shyly as Gendo grinned. He continued to eat, and she studied him, watching his jaws work, his hair that just didn't seem to want to stay combed. He was so skinny. He was much more fragile than he wanted to admit, and she liked that about him. He was somebody who needed taking care of, even when he thought he was taking care of others. Her smile faded, and she found a spot somewhere on his chest to focus on.

"Gendo," she said, "Let's get married." She looked up from her wadded napkin. Gendo sat frozen, his mouth open and his pizza halted on its journey. He blinked slowly, lowered his food, and closed his mouth.

"What? Here?" he asked.

"Be serious," she snapped, cocking her head. "We've been talking about it for the last couple of months. Last time I checked, in fact, you pretty much established your goals from the get-go."

"Well, yes, but I always assumed I would be the one asking…not that I have any problem with…I mean…." He dropped his pizza on the plate. "You're talking about right now."

"What?"

"You're talking about getting married immediately. Like, in the next week or so…maybe even today. Is this just a whim or something?"

"No!" she gasped, sitting back and looking insulted. "That's not it at all!"

"Probably not," he agreed, folding his arms, studying her. He nodded. "You can't convince your father." She glowered, and lowered her eyes.

"I haven't _tried_ to convince my father."

"Ah."

"Don't 'ah' me," she grumped, leaning forward. "How badly do you want to be part of Gehirn?"

"Very badly."

"And how are your credentials?"

"…spotty."

"A bit," she agreed. "But I know you to be a talented individual. I can't convince my father of that, however, because we are dating. I'm 'biased'…never mind the fact I'm biased because you're talented." She shrugged. "I digress."

"Do go on."

"If we marry, and you take my last name, and _that's_ how you meet my father, what choice will he have but to help induct you into Gehirn?"

"Because no one would ever pull the wool over the eyes of Saito Ikari. He would have to acknowledge the marriage, and pretend it was his decision, or he would be made to look like a…fool." A creeping realization came over Gendo, and he glanced into the somewhat-empty parlor, feeling suddenly paranoid. "Why did you come to my apartment last night?"

"I was worried about you," Yui insisted. "Why else would I?"

"Yui, don't do that," Gendo said. "Why did you come? Your father has me under observation, doesn't he? He knows we're involved." Gendo narrowed his eyes, and leaned forward. "You came because you made yourself a hostage." Yui sat back, her eyes wide with shock at the implication…then relaxed, a self-deprecating look spreading across her face.

"I forget how quick you are, Gendo," she sighed. Gendo leaned back, and glanced outside. There was no one _inside_, but sure enough, at an odd corner of the street, just in an alleyway, was a van. It was a beat-up delivery van, but something about the way it sat there felt…it felt wrong. It rankled his instincts and insisted upon his attention. He studied Yui.

"What was he going to do?"

"I don't know," she said. "I doubt he was going to…vanish you, so to speak, but I wouldn't put it past him to send someone to beat you up. I remember the last time I saw you after you had been in a fight. Didn't want to see that again, if you don't mind."

"If you had the chance to see me again, at all. Why doesn't he just lock the princess up in a tower?"

"Oh, you're sweet," Yui said, blushing at being called a 'princess.' "I stand to take a large role in Gehirn, you know that. It wouldn't do if his daughter was just locked away under key. That would damage my credentials as an independent mover within the organization, and he wants to push the Ikari name forward quite a bit. That doesn't mean he won't interfere if he thinks he can get away with it."

"He'll know that, now. I wouldn't be surprised if he's listened to this whole conversation, thanks to our friends down there," Gendo said, nodding gently but surreptitiously in the direction of the van. Yui turned around in her chair and pressed her face against the glass to see the van, earning a dismayed groan from Gendo. "Don't let them _see_ you," he mumbled. In response, she pulled down her eyelid and stuck her tongue out at the van. The engine started, and the vehicle backed noticeably into the alley.

"Let them chew on that, for a bit," she said, turning back to Gendo. "I wouldn't worry about it, anyway. Really, Gendo Rokubungi, do you think I would be _completely_ unprepared to hide our conversations?"

"All right, it would not be above me to assume that…somehow…you're carrying a magic device that can baffle noise," he sighed.

"Don't patronize me, it's not magic. The technology is quite sound and discreet," Yui said in a testy tone.

"A magic device," Gendo insisted. Yui kicked his shin under the table, and he grunted, but continued. "That being said, what about them reading lips? You could have let me known we were being watched."

"Now, Gendo, do you really want me to think you aren't smart enough to assume that all on your own?" she sighed. Gendo glared for a moment, but it wasn't a mean glare. Yui smirked. "I knew that you could figure it out all on your own. Besides, you don't move your lips when you talk."

"I…beg your pardon?"

"You probably don't realize it, but when we're in public, and talking like this? Just you and me? You have a habit of hiding your mouth, or not moving your lips altogether. It's very impressive! I want you to teach me when you can."

"I wasn't even aware of it," Gendo mumbled, and truly he wasn't.

"Great: now that you're thinking about it, you're not doing it," she sighed. "Ah, well. The point is, you do have that talent, that is a fact. I don't know how you picked it up, and frankly, it might be a bit of a tragic tale if you did. I'm in a good mood, and so are you, so let's keep it going, shall we?"

"I'm in a good mood?" Gendo snapped, feeling peevish. "And what could possibly imply that—" Impulsively, Yui leaned across the table and kissed Gendo sweetly on the lips. It was not a chaste kiss, either, but an open kiss that left Gendo's heart beating and his stomach twisting. Yui pulled back a bit, but still sat in front of him, her green eyes fixed on Gendo's and her expression impish.

"That tasted like pizza and octopus," she said, "But it was still nice. I like kissing you, Gendo. I might take it up as a hobby."

"…You are a devil, you know that?" Gendo managed. Yui's expression became a pout.

"Really, I say such nice things about you and this is the thanks I get," she grumped. Gendo leaned forward and nuzzled her nose with his own, and her eyes fluttered close. She gasped lightly and sweetly and the gentle contact, and shivered slightly. For a moment, they simply sat quietly like that, their foreheads just barely touching. Finally, Yui sat back, and gave a full shudder this time as she relaxed. It was not a motion of revulsion, but more like she had just touched a live-wire, that she had just released as much tension as she could. When she opened her eyes, she was blushing and smiling widely. "Who's the devil, now?" she giggled. "God, my heart is pounding."

"All I did was nudge your nose," Gendo said, laughing.

"Sometimes, the most simple gesture can mean so much to a person," Yui said. "You actually made me dizzy. Ooh, I liked that…."

"Yui, angel, you're all right," Gendo said, smiling like an idiot. Yui dipped her fingers into her soda and flicked them in Gendo's face. He blinked at the assault, but continued to smile at her.

* * *

**Notes from GobHobblin**: As I was writing about Gendo's contagious yawn at the start of the chapter, I kid you not, I yawned two times in succession. And now I just did it again. What the heck is up with yawns and the brain?


End file.
